New midrange Samsung Exynos chip topples Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus

Samsung will soon announce a new chip called Exynos 1080, reports GSM Arena.

The publication has cited Dr. Pan Xuebao, who is the director of the Samsung Semiconductor Research Institute in China.

Exynos 1080 is Samsung’s first 5nm SoC

The Exynos 1080 will be based on the 5nm process, the fabrication technology that will also be used for manufacturing Apple’s A14 Bionic and Huawei’s Kirin 9000. In fact, Samsung’s upcoming flagship chip, the Exynos 2100, will apparently also be made on a 5nm node . It will succeed the Exynos 990, the chip that powers the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy Note 20.

The Exynos 1080, on the other hand, will replace Samsung’s first 5G-integrated silicon, the Exynos 980 that fuels mid-rangers such as the Galaxy A71 5G, Galaxy A51 5G, and vivo S6 5G.

The new chip will likely fuel upper midtier 5G handsets like the upcoming vivo X60.

It will feature ARM’s Cortex-A78 CPU, which is nearly 20 percent faster than Exynos 980’s Cortex-A77. Graphics performance should improve considerably as the Exynos 1080 packs the Mali G78 GPU, as opposed to the G76 on its predecessor which is two generations old at this point. 

The chipset has apparently scored more than 650,000 points on the benchmarking website AnTutu. This is actually more than what the current Snapdragon 865 Plus-powered top scorer managed, but that’s totally understandable since Qualcomm’s high-end chip is based on the 7nm process. 

For reference, the Exynos 990 based Galaxy Note 20 Ultra scored 527,353 points.

Unfortunately, the Exynos 1080 is only meant for China.

The good news, though, is that Samsung’s chip operation seems to be headed in the right direction, and if a midtier chip has beaten the Snapdragon 865 Plus, it builds hope that the Exynos 2100 will at least not be a total slacker when compared to the Snapdragon 875.

Tipster Ice Universe has already cautioned us to tamp down expectations, as Qualcomm will maintain a lead for another year at least. 

The Snapdragon 875 will reportedly be the only chip to feature the Cortex-X1 core this year, which is Arm’s flagship core at the moment. It offers around 30 percent better peak performance than the Cortex-A77 core. 

To recap, the Exynos 990 has two Mongoose cores, two Cortex-A76 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores, and the Snapdragon 865 features one prime Cortex-A77 core, three high-performance A77 cores with lower clock speeds, and four Cortex-A55 cores. 

Samsung has received heavy criticism for the growing difference between its proprietary chip and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon silicon.