We compared the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (Adreno 540) with the older 4-core Snapdragon 821 (Adreno 530) SoC. Here you will find the pros and cons of each chip, technical specs, and comprehensive tests in benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Geekbench.
Review
General comparison of performance, power consumption, and other indicators
CPU Performance
Single and multi-core processor tests
Gaming Performance
GPU performance in games and OpenCL/Vulkan
Battery life
Efficiency of battery consumption
NanoReview Score
Overall chip score
Key Differences
Main differences and advantages of each chip
Pros of Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
- Has 4 more cores
- Performs 70% better in floating-point computations
- Has a smaller size transistor (10 versus 14 nm)
- Shows better (up to 40%) AnTuTu 10 score – 371K vs 266K
- Higher GPU frequency (~13%)
- 5% higher CPU clock speed (2450 vs 2342 MHz)
Benchmarks
Performance tests in popular benchmarks
AnTuTu 10
The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
CPU 97035 54955 GPU 116400 83353 Memory 87397 61751 UX 67775 63395 Total score 371548 266058
Submit your AnTuTu result
GeekBench 6
The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Asset compression 89.3 MB/sec 43.4 MB/sec HTML 5 Browser 51.5 pages/sec 26.6 pages/sec PDF Renderer 58.8 Mpixels/sec 35.3 Mpixels/sec Image detection 14.1 images/sec 9.82 images/sec HDR 55.2 Mpixels/sec 35.1 Mpixels/sec Background blur 2.83 images/sec 1.79 images/sec Photo processing 12 images/sec 7.1 images/sec Ray tracing 2.43 Mpixels/sec 993.9 Mpixels/sec
3DMark
A cross-platform benchmark that assesses graphics performance in Vulkan (Metal)
3DMark Wild Life Performance
Stability 95% - Graphics test 6 FPS 5 FPS Score 1165 891
Specifications
Full list of technical specifications of Snapdragon 835 and Snapdragon 821
CPU
Architecture 4x 2.45 GHz – Kryo 280 (Cortex-A73) 4x 1.9 GHz – Kryo 280 (Cortex-A53) 2x 2.342 GHz – Kryo 2x 1.6 GHz – Kryo Cores 8 4 Frequency 2450 MHz 2342 MHz Instruction set ARMv8-A ARMv8-A L1 cache 128 KB 64 KB L2 cache 2 MB 1 MB Process 10 nanometers 14 nanometers Transistor count 3 billion 2 billion TDP 9 W 11 W Manufacturing Samsung Samsung
Graphics
GPU name Adreno 540 Adreno 530 Architecture Adreno 500 Adreno 500 GPU frequency 739 MHz 653 MHz Execution units 1 1 Shading units 384 256 Total shaders 384 256 FLOPS 567.5 Gigaflops 334.3 Gigaflops Vulkan version 1.0 1.0 OpenCL version 2.0 2.0 DirectX version 11 11
Memory
Memory type LPDDR4X LPDDR4 Memory frequency 1866 MHz 1866 MHz Bus 2x 32 Bit 4x 16 Bit Max bandwidth 29.8 Gbit/s 29.8 Gbit/s Max size 8 GB 8 GB
Multimedia (ISP)
Neural processor (NPU) Hexagon 682 Hexagon 680 Storage type UFS 2.1 eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.0 Max display resolution 3840 x 2160 3840 x 2160 Max camera resolution 1x 32MP, 2x 16MP 1x 28MP, 2x 13MP Video capture 4K at 30FPS 4K at 30FPS Video playback 4K at 30FPS 4K at 30FPS Video codecs H.264, H.265, VP9 H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9 Audio codecs AAC, AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV AIFF, CAF, MP3, MP4, WAV
Connectivity
Modem X16 X12 4G support LTE Cat. 16 LTE Cat. 12 5G support No No Download speed Up to 1000 Mbps Up to 600 Mbps Upload speed Up to 150 Mbps Up to 150 Mbps Wi-Fi 5 5 Bluetooth 5.0 4.1 Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo
Cast your vote
So, which SoC would you choose?
Snapdragon 835
108 (78.8%)
Snapdragon 821
29 (21.2%)
Total votes: 137
Related Comparisons
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