The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is coming soon, and it's exhilarating. The chip isn't available in phones yet, but devices loaded with the 888 will be available soon.
If you're looking to learn more about the future of smartphone processing, Qualcomm has posted benchmarks for the 888 processor on Qualcomm.com, and the results are impressive.
Obviously, because the company that posted these results made the processor, we need to take the results with a grain of salt. While we have no reason to believe the company would fudge the results, we have no way to verify the results without running the benchmarks ourselves.
Qualcomm 888 Benchmark Results
Before we get into the results, Android Authority reported the specs of the Qualcomm 888 as it was clocked for the test: 1x Cortex-X1 @ 2.84GHz, 3x Cortex-A78 @ 2.42GHz, and 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz. Additionally, the unnamed device used to run the test featured 12GB LPDDR5 RAM and 512GB UFS storage. Basically, it's a very high-end device.
Qualcomm posted an image showcasing the results from various benchmark tests, which you can see below. It used AnTuTu, Geekbench, GFX Bench, and others. The processor scored high on every single test. In fact, it met or exceeded all of Qualcomm's original claims regarding improvements over last year's chip.
Qualcomm 888 Compared to Other Chips
While seeing those numbers are nice, it's the comparisons between other phones that really tells the story. Android Authority tested other devices to get a comparison. It used the Samsung Galaxy S20 and its Exynos 990, the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE with its Snapdragon 865, and the Apple iPhone 12 (which isn't necessarily compatible, as it's not an Android device, but it's still interesting.
The Snapdragon 888 saw an 18% multi-core and 26% single-core improvement over the Snapdragon 865, a big gain for a single generation leap. In most tests, the A14 Bionic from Apple exceeds the upcoming Snapdragon chip, but it's close in all but the single-core tests, where Apple's chip truly shines.
Should You Be Excited?
In short, yes, you should probably be excited about the performance offered by the Snapdragon 888. As mentioned, we can't verify the results, but if Qualcomm can achieve these numbers in retail devices, it looks like we have a fantastic chip on our hands.
While it doesn't exceed Apple's custom A14 chip's performance in most tests, it does outperform other chips on Android devices, including Qualcomm's own previous-generation chip.
The first phones with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 are slated to come in early 2021, so we won't have to wait too long to get our hands on a device with the chip installed.
