It finally happened! The iPhone 14 Pro Max and his Apple’s A16 Bionic chip inside it are no longer the fastest on the market!
Apple has dominated the mobile silicon race these days and has been waiting for a worthy rival from Qualcomm for years.
The device used for this test is the new camera powerhouse Vivo X90 Pro Plus, but other devices like the Xiaomi 13 Pro are coming soon with the same chip. Needless to say, the Galaxy S23 series is rumored to have an overclocked version. Of the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip. Exciting stuff!
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs Apple A16 Bionic tested
Good news for Android smartphones in 2023.
The go-to benchmark for graphics performance in recent years is the excellent 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test.
This is a simulation of a highly demanding GPU-intensive gaming experience, but the most important thing about this benchmark is that it runs continuously for 20 minutes. Many other benchmarks only run for a few minutes, so they can only measure the initial burst of performance, but they don’t take into account the thermal throttling that most smartphones experience after a short time.
This 3D mark test avoids that pitfall and provides a comprehensive and realistic picture of GPU performance over time.
Here are the actual graphics performance scores for the Vivo X90 Pro Plus (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip) and Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max (Apple A16 Bionic chip):
So what exactly are we looking at here?
Analyzing the results shows that the Vivo scored 3,210 points on the iPhone versus 3,726 points, giving Vivo a 16% difference before throttling.
However, these numbers are actually quite misleading. As you can see in the screenshot above, the iPhone throttles practically immediately in his second minute, while the Vivo starts off slow and maintains its peak as performance tapers off around the eighth minute. I can do it. much longer performance.
iPhone throttling is actually extending the lead for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2!
At the same time, it should be mentioned that while both phones warmed up, the Vivo was unbearably hot to hold immediately after testing. I had to take it to a cold room so I chilled it for a few minutes! If the anecdotal experience is worth it, this is the hottest phone I’ve ever touched.
Also, the Vivo was draining twice as fast as it lost a whopping 15% of battery life over the 20 minutes of testing compared to just 8% on the iPhone! It has to do with high temperatures.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has proven to be a very capable chip, but just as importantly it needs a lot of cooling to sustain those numbers and Vivo has done a lot more on this front. I feel that I was able to do
I haven’t yet tested whether the Vivo X90 Pro Plus gets uncomfortably hot when playing a demanding game like Genshin Impact at maximum settings. This is because good performance is great. That.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs A16 Bionic: tested CPU performance
We mentioned earlier that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phone lags slightly behind the A16 Bionic in CPU performance, so let’s take a closer look at the differences.
| GeekBench score | single core | multicore |
|---|---|---|
| iPhone 14 Pro Max (Apple A16 Bionic) | 1880 | 5369 |
| Vivo X90 Pro Plus (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2) | 1486 | 5122 |
This makes a difference of the next percentage point.
- iPhone 14 Pro Max (A16) has 26.5% faster single-core performance
- iPhone 14 Pro Max (A16) has 4.8% faster multi-core performance
That’s a noticeable difference, especially in single-core performance metrics, but it’s worth noting that with the release of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, that gap has shrunk significantly.
What makes these results possible?
Switching to a new foundry could make a difference
As I mentioned at the beginning, Qualcomm has been trying to catch up with Apple for years, but it didn’t work. However, the big change this year could have been just a manufacturing switch as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is being manufactured at his TSMC factory using his 4nm node.
Previous chips made at Samsung’s foundries had some issues, so it’s likely the switch to higher-quality manufacturing has provided this big boost.
Note that Apple also uses a TSMC foundry, and its A16 Bionic chip is also manufactured using the exact same 4nm technology.
Of course, the new design of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip helps as well. In particular, it has a higher performance core frequency compared to his Qualcomm processors of previous generations.
Vivo X90 Pro Plus: The magic of the 1-inch camera sensor!
A very promising start for the Android flagship of 2023
However the Vivo X90 Pro Plus is an exciting device not only for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside but also for the 1 inch type sensor used for the main camera, a much larger sensor than used in mainstream phones We promise a dramatic improvement in quality.