We had bet a lot of hope on the Samsung Exynos 2200 chip that powers the Galaxy S22s sold in Europe. Equipped with AMD’s first RDNA 2 GPU for smartphones, this chip seemed to hold some nice surprises. The first tests are not very complimentary.
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus and S22 Ultra // Source: Frandroid – Robin Wycke
Like every year, it is always tricky to talk regarding a single model of Galaxy S22. Indeed, Samsung markets products that seem in all respects similar throughout the world, but the reality is that the Galaxy S generally share two families of ARM processors: on the one hand the Qualcomm Snapdragon, often in America and Asia, the other, the Samsung Exynos usually found in Europe.
This year, the particularity is that the Galaxy S22 shares two very different SoCs: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Samsung Exynos 2200.
The big difference this year between these two SoCs is mainly related to the GPU, on the Exynos, the graphics part benefits from an AMD RDNA2 architecture with support for ray tracing.
Even before the start of the usual series of tests, the benchmarks give a first impression of the performance of the new Exynos 2200 with RDNA 2 GPU. Unfortunately, one thing is already certain: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 GPU is much faster.
The Exynos 2200 recessed almost everywhere
In these graphs of the most popular benchmarks, like those of GFXBench, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is well ahead of the Samsung SoC. Even in 1080p definition, Qualcomm once once more demonstrates the advantages of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and once once more marks a lead over Samsung.
After Vulkan, we can also test other graphics APIs like Metal: it’s slightly better for the Exynos 2200, but the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 remains ahead. In 3DMark, the Exynos 2200 is still a good distance behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Only the old OpenGL API allows the Exynos 2200 to compete with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
Many other tests were carried out, including those concerning CPU performance. This is the case with Geek Bench 5.1, PCMark Work 3.0 or even JetStrem 2. Here, the comparison with Apple chips does not hold up, on the other hand the Exynos 2200 is close to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Samsung’s SoC is even front on PCMark Work 3.0.
Either way, it seems clear that AMD’s first RDNA 2 GPU for smartphones isn’t yet a competitor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1’s Adreno 730. And it’s even less of a competitor to the Apple A15 which team theiPhone 13.
The other element that will be tested is autonomy. Let’s hope the Exynos 2200 doesn’t weigh down that of the Galaxy S22s.
That is problematic
It’s problematic that a Galaxy S22 sold in some markets ends up with a significantly more powerful chip than in other markets. Especially since this is not the first time that the European market has benefited from an Exynos chip at a discount compared to the Snapdragon.
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