Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Benchmarks Show Major Performance Upgrade

Qualcomm's next-gen flagship Snapdragon 855 SoC was unveiled in December last year, but so far, the new chipset was yet to be tested on a benchmarking platform, barring some odd unconfirmed results, to measure its prowess. It seems that Qualcomm has now lifted the embargo on the benchmark test results for the Snapdragon 855, which have now surfaced online from multiple sources. And to put it simply, the new chipset doesn't disappoint by putting some impressive figures on the benchmarking score cards. Read on to find out how the new Qualcomm Snapdragon chip scored on various benchmarks and how it stacks up to the last-generation Snapdragon 845 and HiSilicon Kirin 980 chipsets. 

But before we get into details, do keep in mind that the benchmark tests were performed on a reference device provided by Qualcomm that was powered by the Snapdragon 855 coupled with 6GB of RAM and running Android 9 Pie with a customised AOSP software. On the other hand, the comparison tests were conducted on a Snapdragon 845-powered Pixel 3 XL₹ 73,140 with 4GB of RAM and the Honor Magic 2 powered by the Kirin 980 SoC coupled with 8GB of RAM. The benchmark figures mentioned below were recorded by XDA-Developers, however, the scores might differ slightly as multiple other sources have tested the SoC too.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 SoC benchmarks

Benchmark Platform	Snapdragon 855	Snapdragon 845	Kirin 980
AnTuTu	359,000-360,500	285,000	273,495
Geekbench (Single-core)	3,500-3,600	2,384.3	3,335.3
Geekbench (Multi-core)	11,000-12,000	8,317.7	9,838
GFXBench ES3.1	71	60.3	53.3
PCMark	9,000	9,083.7	7,547.3
JetStream	116-117	87.6	94.4

Let's start with two of the most well-known mobile benchmarking platforms - AnTuTu and Geekbench. The Snapdragon 855 SoC's average score on AnTuTu ranged between 359,000 and 360,500. On the other hand, the Snapdragon 845 SoC's average points tally on AnTuTu stood at 285,000 while Huawei's Kirin 980 averaged 273,495 on the benchmarking platform. It is quite evident that the Snapdragon 855 brings a noteworthy performance bump over its predecessor and the same is evident with its performance on Geekbench. 

In Geekbench's multi-core test, the Snapdragon 855 SoC's average score hovered around the 11,000 and 11,200 mark, which is quite a sizeable upgrade over the Snapdragon 845's score of 8,317 points as well as the Kirin 980's average tally of 9,838 points. In the single-core test on Geekbench, the latest flagship SoC from Qualcomm averaged between 3,500 and 3,600, while its predecessor's average score lagged far behind at 2,384 and the Kirin 980's average Geekbench multi-core test score stood at around 3,335. 

Aside from its superior processing grunt, the Snapdragon 855's graphics processing power is also at par by a wide margin. In the GFXBench ES3.1 1080 Manhattan Offscreen test, the latest flagship SoC from the house of Qualcomm averaged 71 points, while the Snapdragon 845 and the Kirin 980 lagged far behind with an average score of 60.3 and 53.3 respectively. One thing appears to be certain - upcoming Android flagships such as the Samsung Galaxy S10, Sony Xperia XZ4 and the Xiaomi Black Shark ‘Skywalker', which are all expected to run the new SoC, will be absolute beasts. So far, OnePlus is one of the few companies that has confirmed that its next flagship will be powered by the Snapdragon 855 SoC.

January 17, 2019