What is a chipset in a smartphone?

SoC (or System on a chip) is a supreme chip that represents something more than a classic desktop processor. In fact, this is a board on the surface of which the CPU itself with its numerous cores, a graphics accelerator, RAM controllers, a memory block and a set of modules for wireless communication are soldered. Another important difference from classic desktop processors is the use of diverse cores. If a conditional Core i5 or Ryzen 5 uses 6 identical cores, a mobile chip may have one "super core", several auxiliary cores for multitasking, a video core and several auxiliary cores that are necessary for the operation of neural networks.

Currently, several leading SoCs from brands such as Samsung (Exynos), Mediatek (Helio), Huawei (Kirin) and Qualcomm (Snapdragon) are being produced.

More about Qualcomm Snapdragon


The most popular, popular and versatile family of mobile processors from Qualcomm. In addition to smartphones, these processors can also often be found in televisions, set-top boxes, smartwatches and even laptops. In terms of quality, stability, price and speed of introduction of new technologies, this is the absolute leader of recent years, which in terms of its coolness resembles Intel from the heyday of Core processors.

Smartphones with Qualcomm processor

More about Mediatek


The manufacturer of MediaTek mobile processors can be called Qualcomm's main competitors, and their confrontation resembles the eternal mixing of Intel and AMD. The company is a licensee who bought from a third-party brand ARM Limited the rights to manufacture chipsets (ARM Cortex) and mobile video graphics (ARM Mali). Usually, the company's processors are in demand in entry-level and mid-level smartphones, but they are not often found in flagships. And this is connected with this.

MediaTek at some point decided to take not quality, but marketing: add unnecessary cores, wind up the results in benchmarks, and then put itself in the best light in the eyes of an enlightened consumer. I especially remember the scandal with the 10-core MediaTek Helio X processors, which turned out to be far from as good as we were promised. Therefore, comparing the characteristics of MediaTek or Qualcomm processors, you need to look not at the frequencies or the number of cores, but the architecture generation, the class of cores and their combination.

For this you will have to dig into the specifications of the processors. For example, Cortex-A53, A55 and A57 were considered simple and energy-efficient cores, while Cortex-A72, A73 and A75 are representatives of the high-performance class. Therefore, no matter how you overclock the Cortex-A55, it will not physically be able to catch up with the Cortex-A72. And with the newer Cortex-A75, they cannot be compared at all.

Smartphones with MediaTek processor

More about Huawei Kirin

SoC Kirin is being developed by HiSilicon Technologies by order of the Huawei/Honor brand. Until 2018, Kirin chips lacked stars from the sky, even flagship models had problems with the memory subsystem, the graphics core specifically lagged behind the requirements of the time, and the battery ran out pretty quickly. To Huawei's credit, the company was actively working on improving both software and hardware, so in 2018 they were waiting for their first success in the face of Kirin 980.

Among its chips, the new Dynamic Core architecture stood out, allowing the use of several different types of cores. Weak and energy-efficient cores were used for simple tasks (browser, calendar, social networks, etc.), and for demanding games, the rest, performant cores with increased frequency and voltage were connected. This approach made it possible to simultaneously optimize the layout of the chip and reduce the power consumption of the smartphone during daily use.

Since then, Huawei has been independently optimizing its software for its own chips, which is why smartphones of this brand show themselves from the best side. However, after the trade war between Trump and China and the sanctions imposed on Huawei, the future of the Kirin line remains in question. If Huawei is able to arrange deliveries, then the announcement of the Kirin 10000 single-chip system should take place next year.

Smartphones with MediaTek processor

More about Samsung Exynos


Exynos are ambiguous single―chip chips that Samsung uses for the European market instead of the flagship Snapdragon processors. Why ambiguous? And look at the recent Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20 Plus, which were sent to the USA and China on board with the promised 865 "dragons", and left Exynos 990 for the European market. The Europeans were rightly outraged, there is not even a need to install the Antutu application, just look at the specifications: the Snapdragon 865 uses ARM Cortex-A77 cores, and the Exynos 990 uses older Cortex-A76 cores. The graphics core in Exynos is also weaker. The difference in performance between these two chips can reach an impressive 20% (this is especially noticeable in games), although in fact we buy the same smartphone for the same money. Imagine that instead of a PS4 Pro in the store, you will be wrapped up with a regular PS4 with the words "don't worry, they are almost no different."

However, there are a few buts here. Firstly, few publications approached the tests as thoroughly as the guys from Anandtech did https://www.anandtech.com/print/14072/the-samsung-galaxy-s10plus-review who tested two variants of the Galaxy S10 Plus on different processors for several months, and then rolled out a review 3 pages shorter than the first volume of "Atlas Shrugged". Secondly, the difference in performance is felt mainly in games, and not in everyday tasks. Thirdly, Exynos chips also have their advantages, such as weak heating or operational software updates.

Fourth is the new Exynos 2100. We haven't seen him in action yet, but his prospects are really interesting, no wonder Samsung threatens to transfer all its future smartphones to Exynos. Moreover, the 5-nanometer Exynos 2100 will be just the beginning: according to rumors, the Korean giant is working closely with AMD on new mobile video processors, and in parallel is developing fundamentally new Cortex-X cores together with ARM. It is likely that after the success of the Apple M1 processor, mobile SoC manufacturers realized that they were ready to play big.

How to evaluate the performance of a smartphone and what's wrong with benchmarks?

And although major brands seem to have put aside their product lines and stopped measuring the pure performance of mobile SoCs, synthetic tests are still an important measure of the coolness of a smartphone. At least, this is constantly being written about in reviews, talked about on YouTube and asked on forums. As you already know, this fact did not pass by smartphone manufacturers, who began somehow to wind up the final scores, which actually had nothing to do with reality.

MediaTek has the longest tail in this story, which manufacturers of synthetic tests have repeatedly caught manipulating data. As it turned out, the company's processors are able to distinguish ordinary work tasks from synthetic tests. And when a tester is launched on a smartphone, the processor not only allocates all resources to knock out as many points as possible, but can also launch a hidden overclocking mechanism like a turbo boost in desktop processors. The output is a distorted picture of the smartphone's performance without regard to increased heating and reduced battery life.

In response to the accusations, Mediatek shrugged their shoulders in surprise and said that overclocking the chip before tests is a common practice followed by its main competitor. Qualcomm also shrugged their shoulders and said that Mediatek was lying and if any of the Snapdragon processors got into such a dubious story, you would have read about it on the same day. In 2018, Huawei got into a similar scandal with its SoC Kirin. Only they did not overestimate the performance of mobile processors, but optimized them in advance for specific tests in order to get higher scores.

Nevertheless, a more universal way to objectively measure everything at once has not yet been invented, so we will continue to operate with figures from AnTuTu.

Top 10 best processors of 2020 according to AnTuTu

Several times a year, the AnTuTu benchmark rolls out a rating of the best mobile processors. The last global rating update took place at the end of August 2020, right before the release of Kirin 9000. At that time, the performance rating was expected to be taken by Snapdragon 865 5G, which left behind MediaTek Dimension 1000+ both in terms of net performance and in terms of video core power. This flagship processor combines eight Kryo 585 cores with a clock speed of up to 2.84 GHz and an Adreno 650 graphics accelerator. The surprise was the "bronze" of last year's flagship Snapdragon 855+, which, according to AnTuTu, still slightly bypasses Kirin 990. But there were no Exynos chipsets in the rating. However, this is explained not by the lousy processors from the Korean giant, but by the fact that Samsung handsets are sold exclusively on Snapdragon in China, and Exynos cannot be found there during the day with fire.

Smartphones with Snapdragon 865 processor

So which processor to choose?

If we talk about entry-level and mid-level models, the most successful options at the moment areSnapdragon 662 andSnapdragon 665. Slightly more interesting options will beSnapdragon 710 and, especially, gamingSnapdragon 720G, but they are more expensive and it's a bit of a lottery. But in the models of the last generation likeSnapdragon 636 doesn't make much sense right now.

Considering all that has been said about Mediatek, we would not be in a hurry to recommend its products. Yes, the new chips of the Dimension family (for example, the Dimension 1000+ and the Dimension 820) turned out to be surprisingly good and can bring the company back into the big game, but these are top-level solutions.

However, with such an assessment, it is important to understand that the processor is inextricably linked with the rest of the hardware, so the performance of the smartphone is affected by a variety of factors up to the optimization of the shell. Therefore, it is harder to compare two mobile processors head-on than to arrange another "Ryzen 5 vs Core i5" test.

And which video core is better for games?

In the mobile GPU market, the main confrontation is between Adreno and Mali accelerators. The former are used in conjunction with Qualcomm processors, the latter are usually found in SoC Kirin and MediaTek. As in the case of computing cores, Qualcomm's GPU test results at least do not lag behind, and often surpass competitors. This is largely due to the popularity of the platform, so when creating games, developers use more advanced APIs, which has a better effect on optimization.

However, this popularity did not arise out of thin air. Solutions from Mali, usually, have fewer shader blocks, hence the more modest performance indicators in GFlops. They also cope worse with the distribution of loads between graphics cores. They tried to catch up with Adreno by increasing the clock speeds of the video core, but this led to problems with heating and increased power consumption. In comparison to this, the main advantage of Mali graphics is its cost.

This leads to an obvious conclusion. More expensive Adreno video processors will be preferable for those who plan to play often and thoroughly. For people who are not interested in heavy AAA games, or play rarely, the graphics from Mali will be quite enough.