Our mobile chipset guide: The 2017 edition

07 February 2017
Some of you may know your Kirins and your Snapdragons, but others end up frustrated how to gauge the performance of a chipset inside the phone of their dreams based on the number of cores or the clock rate. This is where this article steps in. It's a guide to modern day mobile chipsets. It's meant as a long-term reference resource that you can always get back to when you are unsure which is which.

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  • D
  • AnonD-39937
  • ajP
  • 08 Feb 2017

AnonD-197217, 08 Feb 2017I myself is a fan of mediatek. I believe Mediatek focuse... moreYou are right about the fact that Snapdragon 625/652 is more than powerful enough for the majority of users, but people buy 821 because it's future proof, you can use it 2-3 years and still have a decent amount of performance... 625 in 2 years won't be that great

    • D
    • AnonD-39937
    • ajP
    • 08 Feb 2017

    alexv, 08 Feb 2017unfortunately it's not a matter of what you need. you can't... moreExactly, single core performance is more important, this is why A10 fusion is crushing all the android competition, being on par with a 6th generation Intel core i5 ULV.

      • D
      • AnonD-39937
      • ajP
      • 08 Feb 2017

      GsmArena, this is a very good article, it explains everything one needs to know about CPUs and the charts are very useful, clearly we would like to see a half an year article every then and know. It may not be that useful for the very few of us,geeks ,who know the majority of the information,but everyone has something to learn, for example I didn't know how Kirin competes with the rest of the world (except the 950/955/960 which I knew) and I didn't know that they have such history in making SOCs. For the majority of people, which don't know anything else about CPUs than number of cores, this is am incredible article, very explicit. I would like the see compilation articles like this about others components as well, but for now it's great.

        • a
        • alexv
        • nm5
        • 08 Feb 2017

        consumersmartphone, 08 Feb 2017Both single core or multi core performance is important for... moreunfortunately it's not a matter of what you need. you can't say i need multi core performance because you can't make use of it. single core performance (even in PCs) is by far more important. most apps only utilise a couple of cores at a time, double that best case scenario. it's better for example to have 4 cortex a53 at 2.5GHz than 8 at 1.3GHz.

          • D
          • AnonD-197217
          • Ki3
          • 08 Feb 2017

          I myself is a fan of mediatek.

          I believe Mediatek focuses on efficiency, exactly what people need and not bloating.
          How many percent of people who bought Samsung S7 with sd820 really need the power of Adreno 530? I believe even most of people who bought the fancy S7 don't really care about the chipset, as people who understand chipset would go for OnePlus 3.

          How many percent of Android users really play HD gaming on their phones? And yet, how many games in the market place really utilize the full power of Adreno 530?

          Why would you buy a gadget of which with the same price you can get a decent PC or console to play the REAL HD game???

          In the real world, Helio X20 or better yet P20, or in sd case, 625/652 are already abundantly powerful enough for most android users.

            • D
            • AnonD-197217
            • Ki3
            • 08 Feb 2017

            one of the best article about SOC so far, those who still complain about this article can make their own article or just go eat dirt. Ungrateful.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • s07
              • 08 Feb 2017

              Like a G6 :v, 08 Feb 2017Most people around the world don't look for the latest Snap... moreLook at the s7 and s7 edje battery life and say that again

                • N
                • Nyx
                • KL$
                • 08 Feb 2017

                Though I understand how time consuming it would be to include gpu perfomance in the analysis, I still think it is necessary to consider gpu and not solely on raw cpu.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • iGB
                  • 08 Feb 2017

                  R!TTER, 08 Feb 2017As someone who frequents this site often, I ask why not Gee... moreIt would be harder for them to retest all the older devices on Geekbench 4 they already have all the scores fog Geekbench 3 and probably dont even have all the phones

                    • v
                    • vasra
                    • nmN
                    • 08 Feb 2017

                    This is Q1 2017 edition.
                    Both Snapdragon 835 and Kirin 965 or Kirin 970 will ship in Q1/Q2 (within H1) of 2017.
                    They will redefine the whole chart both for performance and for power consumption.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • xCD
                      • 08 Feb 2017

                      Mid range phones now have close to the performance of flagships from a couple years ago (and these are by no means slouches). Testament to how ridiculously overpowered today's flagships are (regardless of marque).

                        • R
                        • R!TTER
                        • 3nK
                        • 08 Feb 2017

                        As someone who frequents this site often, I ask why not Geekbench 4 results? Please make it happen, for the number of handsets at your disposal is huge!

                          • D
                          • AnonD-632062
                          • 3Yc
                          • 08 Feb 2017

                          "With the Snapdragon 808 and 810, it was namely the thermal benefits of the 20nm process...." AHEM!
                          "Thermal benefits" and "Snapdragon 810" do not go together in the same sentence! :P

                            • D
                            • AnonD-632062
                            • 3Yc
                            • 08 Feb 2017

                            Thanks GSMArena for this wonderful article! And next time please include Apple too, as no description of mobile chipsets can be complete without Apple's superb A-series!

                            Every year it's the same story. At the beginning of the year, all Android SoC's set new benchmarks, vastly improving their CPU performance and getting close to the previous year's Apple SoC. You'd think we'll finally have an SoC King in Android and then September comes along, and Apple just DESTROYS the competition with their single core CPU performance. And don't even get me started on their GPU prowess.

                              Please mention about Apple chipsets also

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • KSu
                                • 08 Feb 2017

                                Anony, 07 Feb 2017So SD625 is much faster than SD652/SD650??yes in multi- core only.
                                it lags behind significantly in single core performancce

                                  Beautifully written and beginner friendly article, now I can easily teach people by simply referring to this article. I hope you could someday add Apple A architecture so it can be compared with others, especially the reasoning if Apple can put HUGE cores inside, there must be some other things it doesn't have.

                                    • O
                                    • Old Fart
                                    • iLk
                                    • 08 Feb 2017

                                    Brilliant article, thanks. It's brought me up to date / up to speed with developments in SoC technology.

                                    As my nick suggests, I'm old enough to remember when ARM meant Acorn RISC Machines, even had one of their StrongArm desktop computers (And an Archimedes 310, *and* a BBC "B" before that!).

                                      • D
                                      • AnonD-579931
                                      • 7wx
                                      • 08 Feb 2017

                                      Absolutely brilliant article. I was looking for something like this from a long time - a consolidated place housing all essential phone hardware related info. Looking forward to more updates on this in the future covering other areas like GPU Cores, Network Modems and so on.

                                        • D
                                        • AnonD-642903
                                        • yp1
                                        • 08 Feb 2017

                                        An article i have been waiting for!
                                        Thank you team GsmArena.