Snapdragon 820 Performance Preview

Testing Snapdragon 820

In usual fashion, we were invited to Qualcomm's headquarters to get a first look at Snapdragon 820’s performance. Since retail products using the 820 are not available yet (or have even been announced), we subjected Qualcomm's Mobile Development Platform (MDP) to a battery of tests.

Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 Smartphone MDP

The smartphone MDP is an oversized phone used internally by Qualcomm for testing and development. Obviously all the usual caveats apply: We’re testing pre-production hardware and software, so we could encounter some performance anomalies. Furthermore, because the MDP chassis is larger and thicker than the sleek flagship phones that will eventually house the 820, we cannot make any assessments of thermal throttling. Also, with only a limited amount of hands-on time, we’ll need to wait for shipping hardware to quantify battery life.

The data that we will be presenting then, serves as a performance preview, an early look at the 820’s potential. While the final numbers may change, our experience testing both the Snapdragon 805 and Snapdragon 810 MDPs (those were both tablets) showed good correlation with eventual shipping products.

Devices Used for Testing

Even though testing took place outside of our lab, we followed our usual testing procedures as closely as possible. We used our own benchmark files and ran each test at least twice, averaging the results, like we usually do. Because of the limited testing time, however, we did not have time to allow the MDP to cool between tests. We did not see much variation between successive runs, though, so thermal throttling did not appear to impact the results.

  • blackmagnum
    ...so, Apple's the Intel of the mobile cpu world, while Qualcomm's the AMD. One brings the performance while the other offers better value.
    Reply
  • donjay
    No, Apple is not Intel of the CPU world.

    Apple is not actively sabotaging Android devices by offering subsidies to Android Tablet and Phone manufacturers.
    Reply
  • megamanxtreme
    I really hope that the 820 is not as hot as the 810 gets, if not, I'll have to wait for the 830. I found the 950XL having to need a liquid cooler an insult.
    Until then, I'll survive with the 800 on my Lumia 1520.

    Actually, to blackmagnum, Qualcomm is being rumored to pay companies to include their processors, not sure if they are paying to exclude the competition, but it sounds similar to what Intel did to cut-off AMD on a lot.

    Found an article: http://www.zdnet.com/article/eu-to-qualcomm-youve-been-paying-to-shut-out-rival-chip-makers/
    Reply
  • LordConrad
    No, Apple is not Intel of the CPU world.

    Apple is not actively sabotaging Android devices by offering subsidies to Android Tablet and Phone manufacturers.
    I believe he meant it in terms of performance.
    Reply
  • nitrium
    No, Apple is not Intel of the CPU world.
    Apple is not actively sabotaging Android devices by offering subsidies to Android Tablet and Phone manufacturers.
    Apple also doesn't allow anyone other than Apple to use their CPU... exactly UNLIKE Intel, who lets anyone use their chips in any device you can dream up.
    Reply
  • monsta
    look forward to seeing the 820 in the next flagship phones , if the numbers are correct on paper it's going to be a great chip
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    Apple's CPU Cores are clocked quite a bit higher than the 820 in these test.. Also the Adreno GPU is kicking apple's a9 butt.
    Reply
  • ZolaIII
    Looks like S620 will be lovely.
    Actual splitting the Kryo cores in two clusters whose a dumb move.
    They will certainly get a performance edge in real usage where 2 cores are mostly sufficient enough (Web, apps) but in cases where you need more it will even be under the S620 so that's shooting in their own feat.
    I am not impressed with Spectra or QDSP but I am impressed with GPU performance.
    So in summary if they don't blow with GPU on S620 along with pricing they culd stay in the game as S620 could be a wonderful mainstream SoC all well balanced otherwise it will be a game over for them.
    I won't be crying for them as I didn't for Texas Instruments or Broadcom that they pushed out (that they will finally pay for) but truth is if they go down we are all without any open stock (I don't count Exunos as one more OEM ever used them).
    Reply
  • wh3resmycar
    all those processing power for what? sending a d*ck pic in snapchat? smartphone performance has been so much saturated since the snapdragon s4. i'd take this 820 @ half the clocks plus 5000mah of battery in a smart phone because running your phone longer in the day makes more sense than any other gimmicks out there.
    Reply
  • daniel_103
    17105501 said:
    all those processing power for what? sending a d*ck pic in snapchat? smartphone performance has been so much saturated since the snapdragon s4. i'd take this 820 @ half the clocks plus 5000mah of battery in a smart phone because running your phone longer in the day makes more sense than any other gimmicks out there.

    So true! Is the first time when i read a good comment and a very real. This is a question that many people should think about... Are we use our smartphones for playing video games or for the real communications and network connection? What do people want from a smartphone? You expecting to run AutoCAD on your smartphone, or 2 days without recharge and full network?
    Reply