Best Mobile Processors List By performance - 2021

Testing device performance can be a tricky business. The traditional way to test performance is using a benchmark like AnTuTu, Geekbench, and 3DMark. However, some benchmarks only test the CPU, others mainly the GPU. This means that a device could have a good CPU coupled with an underpowered GPU, but some benchmarks wouldn’t detect that.

Also, there is often a feeling among users that benchmarks don’t simulate “real world” use. Not to mention: Some phone makers actually cheat in benchmarks by building a mechanism into their devices that intentionally increases the clock frequencies, at the expense of battery life and excess heating, when a benchmark is running.

Typically, to get more accurate results when using traditional benchmarks we test using several different apps (AnTuTu, Basemark, Geekbench, GFXBench, and 3DMark) and then weigh the results to show the overall consensus. This way, if one device is strong according to one benchmark, but clearly middle-of-the-road according to the other, then it won’t be declared the winner.

Of course, these benchmarks don’t tell us how well a phone performs over time. Because of this and other concerns we mentioned, we added another layer: a special version of Speed Test G that runs in a loop and records the performance over several hours. We also take into account the first (and usually fastest) Speed Test G time.

By recording the performance of each test run, we can see if a device that shines when asked to do a quick sprint collapses in a heap when we ask it to run a marathon. After all, how many of you use your phone for only a few minutes a day?

There are several benefits to this kind of sustained testing strategy, namely being able to see a distribution of results, rather than one score. By compiling over a hundred test runs per phone, we can see things like how each device handles throttling, battery management, and even rule out shenanigans. It also provides us a decent sample size to control for outlier results and to see if the CPU or GPU is gumming up the works at any point.

Apple A14 Bionic

The Apple A14 Bionic is a 64-bit ARMv8.5a system on a chip, designed by Apple Inc. It appears in the fourth-generation iPad Air, as well as iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple states that the central processing unit performs up to 40% faster than the A12, while the graphics processing unit is up to 30% faster than the A12. It also includes a 16-core neural engine and new machine learning matrix accelerators that perform twice and ten times as fast, respectively.

A14 is manufactured by TSMC on their first-generation 5 nm fabrication process, N5. This makes the A14 the first commercially available product to be manufactured on a 5 nm process node The transistor count has increased to 11.8 billion, a 38.8% increase from the A13's transistor count of 8.5 billion.

According to Semianalysis, the die size of the A14 processor is 88 mm2, with a transistor density of 134 million transistors per mm2. It is manufactured in a package on package (PoP) together with 4 GiB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone 12 and 6 GB of LPDDR4X memory in the iPhone 12 Pro. Ok Its too much now, time for our 7 best mobile processors compilation...

Snapdragon 888

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G Mobile Platform is a high-end SoC for smartphones that were introduced in late 2020 and manufactured in 5 nm at Samsung. Integrates one “Prime Core” based on an ARM Cortex-X1 architecture clocked at up to 2.84 GHz. Three more performance cores are based on the A78 but clock up to 2.42 GHz.

Furthermore, four energy-saving cores are integrated that are based on the ARM Cortex-A55 architecture and clocked at up to 1.8 GHz. In addition to the processor cores, the SoC integrates a WiFi 6e modem, a Hexagon 780 DSP, and a Spectra 580 ISP. The integrated memory controller now supports faster LPDDR5 memory with up to 3,200 MHz. 5G is now included in the chip with the Snapdragon X60 modem.

Exynos 2100

The Exynos 2100 is a landmark release for the firm, not just because of the fact that it’s a 5nm design. It’s the company’s first flagship SoC without custom CPU cores since 2015’s Exynos 7420. Instead of Samsung’s in-house Mongoose cores, the new SoC exclusively uses Arm’s Cortex cores.

The chipset sports one Arm Cortex-X1 core clocked at 2.9GHz, three Cortex-A78 CPU cores at 2.8GHz, and four Cortex-A55 cores running at 2.2GHz. This is the same CPU core arrangement seen on the rival Snapdragon 888 SoC. Samsung said the new CPU setup enables a 30% boost to multi-core performance over the Exynos 990. The Korean brand also points to the 5nm process as being crucial, saying it enables 20% lower power consumption or 10% better overall performance.

Apple A13 Bionic

The Apple A13 Bionic is a 64-bit ARM-based system on a chip (SoC), designed by Apple Inc. It appears in the iPhone 11, 11 Pro/Pro Max, and the iPhone SE (2nd generation). Apple states that the two high-performance cores are 20% faster with 30% lower power consumption than the Apple A12's, and the four high-efficiency cores are 20% faster with 40% lower power consumption than the A12's

The Apple A13 Bionic features an Apple-designed 64-bit six-core CPU implementing ARMv8.4-A ISA, with two high-performance cores running at 2.65 GHz called Lightning and four energy-efficient cores called Thunder. The Lightning cores feature machine learning accelerators called AMX blocks. Apple claims the AMX blocks are six times faster at matrix multiplication than the Apple A12's Vortex cores. The AMX blocks are capable of up to one trillion single-precision operations per second.

Kirin 9000

The HiSilicon Kirin 9000 is an ARM-based high-end octa-core SoC for smartphones and tablets, which was introduced with the Huawei P40 Pro. It integrates eight CPU cores in three clusters. A single high-performance ARM Cortex-A77 cores with up to 3.13 GHz for fast single-core performance. Three more performance cores (same Cortex-A77 architecture) with up to 2.54 GHz and four efficiency cores based on the ARM Cortex-A55 architecture with up to 2.05 GHz. All 8 cores can be used at once (big. LITTLE).

For AI acceleration (NPU), the Kirin 9000 integrates the Da Vinci Architecture 2.0 (2 * Ascend Lite and 1 * Ascend Tiny). Huawei specifies 8 MB of system cache (most likely shared for CPU, GPU, and AI) and can access LPDDR4X and LPDDR5 main memory. The integrated 5G modem supports SA&NSA, Sub-6G, and mmWave. WiFi 6 including VHT160 and Bluetooth 5.2 are also integrated into the chip.

Exynos 1080

The Exynos 1080 is fabricated using Samsung’s latest 5nm process. It features one Cortex-A78 CPU core clocked at 2.8GHz, three Cortex-A78 CPU cores clocked at 2.6GHz, and four Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2GHz. It uses ARM’s Mali-G78 GPU with 10 cores. The chipset supports LPDDR4X and LPDDR5 RAM, UFS 3.0 and UFS 3.1 storage, up to 200MP camera sensors, and 144Hz refresh rate screens.

Samsung has equipped its latest Exynos processor with a dedicated NPU for faster AI and machine learning tasks. It also has an integrated 5G modem with support for sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G. Other features include GPS, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, up to 4K 60fps video recording, and 4K HDR10+ video playback. Surprisingly, no Galaxy device has been leaked yet that uses the Exynos 1080.

Snapdragon 870

The Snapdragon 870 still uses Kryo 585 cores, which are based on ARM’s Cortex-A77 with some in-house tweaks. The Snapdragon 888 CPU is based on the newer Cortex-X1 and A78 instead, so while it runs at lower frequencies (2.84 GHz for the X1), there’s more to the performance story. We’ll have to wait for the first benchmarks to see how all these chips compare, though.

Its CPU reaches the highest clock speed in the mobile world – the prime core now runs at 3.2 GHz, up from 3.1 GHz on the 865+ and 2.94 GHz on the vanilla 865. Those two were surpassed by the Kirin 9000 and its 3.13 GHz prime core, but now Qualcomm has reclaimed the clock speed crown.