Exynos 2100 vs Snapdragon 888: Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra sustained performance and throttling test

21 February 2021
We did some torture testing on the two variants, just to see which one holds-up better under sustained load.

Sort by:

  • J
  • John Doe
  • XS5
  • 16 Feb 2023

Anonymous, 22 Feb 2021samsung clearly doesnt give a crap about you indians yappin... moreAnd, why don't they give a crap about Europeans?

    • C
    • Chris
    • S1m
    • 06 Nov 2021

    It would also be important to take into account the modems in both devices. In 24 hours of maintaining a cellular connection, which one uses less power and maintains connectivity better? During a day the phone can easily use 10-20% of power just connecting to cell towers.

    The reason Samsung use Qualcomm in the US is partly licensing, as if they used their own SoC/Modem they need to pay royalties to Qualcomm. Also in a "you scratch our back we'll scratch yours" type thing, in return for Samsung getting the contract to fabricate the Qualcomm chips, Samsung use Qualcomm chips in the US. So Samsung don't really lose out too much, as either way they are making both.

      • E
      • Eydee
      • I@H
      • 11 Oct 2021

      Andrew, 29 Aug 2021Given a choice would anyone choose Exynos over Qualcomm for... moreExynos 2100 vs 888, yes, I will go for Exynos. Below versions of Exy and SD, prolly SD.

        Andrew, 29 Aug 2021Given a choice would anyone choose Exynos over Qualcomm for... moreEven OnePlus 9 Pro gets too hot while using the camera as Android Police had reported before. To make matters worse, even Sony Xperia 5 Mk3 couldn't score better battery endurance rating despite having a bigger battery than its last year model. So really, I'm staying away from 888-powered smartphones until Samsung truly fixes its thermal management system.

          cycloholic, 15 Mar 2021The performance on both are super great, i dont think anyon... moreNot when it comes to mobile gaming with high settings and intensive multiple app usage. You can definitely see the difference.

            While there is no difference between the two when it comes to synthetic benchmark and battery life, the same cannot be said here. This CPU throttling test really shows how much performance the Exynos chipset had lost after a prolonged usage. It seems that the only reason to buy the Exynos variant is because of battery life.

              • A
              • Andrew
              • ncN
              • 29 Aug 2021

              Given a choice would anyone choose Exynos over Qualcomm for this phone.... The vast majority of application writers optimise for Qualcomm first - I was just about to choose Samsung and now will look at One Plus just because I want the 888 and I am buying it because I want to use it processing video from my 360 camera....

                • A
                • Abricus
                • B0@
                • 12 Aug 2021

                This exynos 2100 is very low processor again..
                I have S21 Ultra And i cant play games i play wildrift on low settings with 30 40 fps after first game its hot so much ... on low settings game 30 40 fps unplayable ..... i am mad for that i trust to new exynos ....

                  • N
                  • Nagano
                  • Nu6
                  • 17 Jul 2021

                  MrDong, 25 Feb 2021Actually wrong. I have seen somewhere pointing out the Vulk... moreWhy 2030, three years from now phones should play crises but at lower resolution like 1440p and another issue will you buy the games cuz u love free to play titles

                    • R
                    • Ram
                    • f{X
                    • 08 Jul 2021

                    Samsung, why step brotherly treatment to non US buyers, good bye Samsung

                      • U
                      • User
                      • nxx
                      • 20 May 2021

                      Samsung, you won't see my money untill you stop selling inferior products for non US markets. Thank you and good bye.

                        • A
                        • Azar Musthafa
                        • 7Xk
                        • 30 Mar 2021

                        Anonymous, 22 Feb 2021Wait 8 months. All samsung phones get slower before 1 yea... moreI am using a samsung mid ranger and still it is lag free...and it is performing as same as before, so just think about their flagship

                          • N
                          • Nick
                          • iyP
                          • 24 Mar 2021

                          I have a exonys. Its gets hot quick. And its lagged before. We talk after 10min of camera

                            The performance on both are super great, i dont think anyone would see the difference in real world or actually needs that performance. On the other hand my only concern about exynos was the battery efficiency and im glad that matches the snapdragon in this category!

                              • L
                              • LOL
                              • yAK
                              • 15 Mar 2021

                              Why is this still a debate?

                              Exynos = inferior product sold at Snapdragon prices. More profit for Samsung. No need to pay the Qualcomm tax. Also keeps its own Korean workers happy, shutting down Exynos will upset them a lot... you will see street protests by labor unions etc.

                              If Exynos were really good, you would see plenty of non-Samsung Android phones using them too. I rest my case.

                              Good = cost-effective, temperature, GPU performance, throttling etc. The whole package. Collaborating with AMD will not save it.

                                MrDong, 26 Feb 2021Could you please define the single threaded CPU usage on PC... moreIt was from a reddit comment, the guy went from 35 to 60fps on cpu upgrade from i5 2500k to r5 3600, same gpu. But he could be wrong, since 3600 is huge upgrade in single and multi. Unless he actually checked and made sure its running on one core only.

                                Yea i heard the anti cheat consumes too much resources too.

                                  • M
                                  • MrDong
                                  • xZE
                                  • 26 Feb 2021

                                  Mediatek sux, 25 Feb 2021Dont know about vulkan being better than metal, but what i ... moreCould you please define the single threaded CPU usage on PC? This does sound weird though. But yes the RAM management in any platform is suboptimal. From a picture I have seen in Facebook the anti-cheat system consumes too much RAM, therefore bottlenecking the lower-end PCs. An old GPU like the Intel HD 4000/5000 can cut it but unfortunately using an HDD will just cause very many issues.

                                    MrDong, 25 Feb 2021Actually wrong. I have seen somewhere pointing out the Vulk... moreDont know about vulkan being better than metal, but what i said is its worse on android than even opengl, due to some bugs that are only fixed in the next year with a new android version. Vulkan performance went down from android 9 to 10. Should start getting better now that updatable gpu drivers are a thing even without root, no need to wait for newer android version.

                                    Not asking about spec, but fps and power usage like with each game, like techutopia or golden reviewer shows, with perfdog.

                                    The only other game thats somewhat similar i see is ark survival and thats locked to 30 i think. I have played bright memory it was good for the little gameplay it had. Something similar to it is tauceti.

                                    Maybe it makes use of some feature thats hard to implement or unsupported on a10 chipset. They do recommend from a11. Mobile is the most optimised platform though, from what i heard, its the worst on ps4 and its even single threaded on pc.

                                      • M
                                      • MrDong
                                      • xZE
                                      • 25 Feb 2021

                                      Mediatek sux, 25 Feb 2021No, the drivers matter a lot. Vulkan was supposed to be low... moreActually wrong. I have seen somewhere pointing out the Vulkan API is actually better than Metal, but it appears some devs optimise apps better for iOS devices as they only have a few devices/chipsets to work on. You also have multiple OSes for Android, having a powerful chipset but lacking the correct game drivers are pointless.

                                      No, TechTablets don't do SPECint benchmarks. Anandtech has SPEC benchmarks, explain the structure of the chipsets.

                                      Genshin is surely not optimised, it is not even supported on the older PowerVR GPU, even an iPad Pro 2017 (A10 Fusion) won't cut it despite at the lowest settings (the screen goes black). I do have few cases where a part of my screen appears to duplicate itself, heck I'm using a SD865 phone so that's not acceptable.

                                      I would like to recommend Bright Memory but the gameplay's too short and the navigation bar on the bottom screen won't dissapear. Not too sure about Asphalt 9 but doesn't appear to be too demanding. Lifeafter has way too many graphical bugs and glitches.

                                      Unfortunately mobile games have too many limitations compared to PC. Maybe 2030 we can play Crysis on Mobile 😃

                                        Unfair, The Exynos is a ARM stock unmodified, while the Snapdragon is custom cores.

                                        The moongose Custom made cores was clocked 15% lower and was on par with Snapdragon 865,855.