Benchmark results suggest Kirin 9000 offers faster graphics than the Snapdragon 875

The results were posted on Weibo by well-known leaker Digital Chat Station. The Snapdragon 875 scored 333,269 on the CPU test. In contrast, Huawei Mate 40 Pro’s Kirin 9000, which is also based on the 5nm process and is an octa-core CPU too, achieved 275,862 points. 

This is understandable, as the Snapdragon 875  apparently employs Arm’s Cortex-X1 CPU as its primary core, which promises 30 percent greater peak performance than Kirin 9000’s Cortex-A77 core. 

Qualcomm’s forthcoming chip is also expected to feature the Cortex-A78, which offers 20 percent better performance than the Cortex-A77. 

The tipster also notes that Snapdragon 875’s prime core is clocked at 2.84GHz. The Snapdragon 875 Plus is already under development and it appears it will have a higher frequency, as was the case with the Snapdragon 865 Plus.

Kirin 9000’s Mali G78 GPU is 10 percent more power-efficient than its predecessor

Qualcomm’s forthcoming chip apparently managed to get 342,225 on the GPU test, which puts it behind the Kirin 9000 which achieved 344,334. Huawei’s chip features the Mali G78 GPU, and the Snapdragon 875 is expected to come with the Adreno 660 GPU. Per Huawei, its chipset’s graphics performance is 52 percent faster than the Snapdragon 865 Plus, and it now appears that even with the introduction of the new Adreno GPU, it will maintain a lead. 

The Samsung Exynos 2100, the chip that will likely power the Galaxy S21, is expected to have the same GPU, and it was previously expected that the Adreno 660 would have a 10 percent lead over it. 

So, while Snapdragon 875’s CPU lead over Kirin 9000 is consistent with expectations, the GPU score is the real surprise here. At the same time, the Mali G78 is apparently a power hog, so we will have to wait for Snapdragon 875-powered phones to come out to compare the real-world performance of the two chips.