HiSilicon Kirin 9000 vs Samsung Exynos 1080 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 benchmarks show an impressive lead over the older Qualcomm

[Original Post: 19 October 2020] Now updated with benchmarks and more accurate information

The future of flagship chipsets from Huawei owned HiSilicon remains in doubt due to the extensive restrictions placed upon the company by the US in this protracted political dispute.

So the Kirin 9000 could very well be the swan song for Hisilicon, at least for flagship chipsets.

These issues have caused a delay for the Huawei Mate 40 series, but the phones will finally be launched globally this week, and as usual various leaks and benchmarks are quickly coming out prior to the launch.

This is technically more of a 2021 flagship chipset so it is the first one to launch. Therefore it is only possible to compare against  Samsungs recently launched upper midrange Exynos 1080 and the existing Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ (rather than the SD875 due to be announced in December).

Specification

The exact specification of the Kirin 9000 remains unknown, but we know the chipset will be made on the 5nm fabrication process and leaked benchmarks indicate that the chipset is running four Cortex-A77 cores that are clocked at 3.13 GHz.

This would make it higher clocked than the existing Snapdragon 865+ which has its prime core running at 3.09 GHz. While this is a massive upgrade compared to the Kirin 990 5G it replaces, it is a generation behind what the SD875 will likely use.

The Samsung Exynos 1080 is the first chipset to implement the Arm Cortex A78, however, with this being a mid-range chipset it only has two of these cores, running at an unknown speed.

The Kirin 9000 will use the Arm Mali-G78 GPU and it has a massive 24 cores which should make it incredible for gaming

This is the same GPU as the Samsung Exynos 1080, which also has not had the cores or frequency specified yet.

SoC	Kirin 9000	Snapdragon 865+	MediaTek Dimensity 1000	Exynos 1080
CPU	1x Cortex A77 @ 3.13Ghz	1x Cortex A77 @ 3.1GHz 1x512KB pL2	4x Cortex A77 @ 2.6GHz	1 x ARM Cortex-A78 @ 2.8GHz
	3x Cortex A77 @ 2.54Ghz	3x Cortex A77 @ 2.42GHz 3x256KB pL2	4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz	3 x ARM Cortex-A78 @ 2.6GHz
	4x Cortex A55@ 2.05Ghz	4x Cortex A55@ 1.80GHz 4x128KB pL2 4MB sL3		6 ARM [email protected]
GPU	Mali-G78 24 Cores	Adreno 650 +10% Perf	Mali-G77MP9 @ ? MHz	ARM Mali-G78 MP10
APU / NPU / AI Proc. / Neural IP	2 big core, 1 tiny core	Hexagon 698 15 TOPS AI	"3rd gen APU"	Dual NPU + DSP
Memory	LPDDR5 / LPDDR 4X	4x 16-bit CH @ 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 33.4GB/s or @ 2750MHz LPDDR5 / 44.0GB/s 3MB system level cache	?	LPDDR5 @ 2750MHz
ISP/Camera	quad-core, 6th gen ISP	Dual 14-bit Spectra 480 ISP	80MP	Single: 108MP
Integrated Modem	Balong 5000 4G + 5G NR NSA+SA Sub-6GHz	external X55 (5G NR Sub-6 + mmWave) DL = 7000 Mbps UL = 3000 Mbps	5G Sub-6 DL = 4600Mbps UL = 2500Mbps	Exynos Modem External (5G NR Sub-6) DL = 5100 Mbps (5G NR mmWave) DL = 7350 Mbps
Process	TSMC 5nm	TSMC 7nm (N7P)	N7	5nm

Benchmarks

Antutu

Leaked benchmarks indicate the Kirin 9000 achieving 693,605 which would put it almost 8% ahead of the currently most powerful phone on the market, the Asus ROG Phone 3 which uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+.

It was previously reported than the Exynos 1080 would be able to achieve an extremely impressive result of over 650,000. While this is below the Kirin 9000, it is worth remembering this is not a flagship chipset.

Geekbench

In Geekbench the Kirin 9000 managed to achieve 1016 for the single-core and 3688 for multi-core.

This puts it out comfortably ahead of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 which managed 975 and 3357, giving it a 4.2% and 9.8% advantage overall.

Geekbench 5	Chipset	Single Core	Multi Core
Honor Magic5 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 2	1481	4932
Honor Magic4 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	1220	3569
Xiaomi Mi 11	Snapdragon 888	1139	3693
OnePlus 9 Pro	Snapdragon 888	1109	3487
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra	Exynos 2100	1079	3381
Google Pixel 6	Google Tensor	1042	2957
Xiaomi	Dimensity 8200-Ultra	1005	3744
OPPO Find X5 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	976	3484
Asus ROG Phone 3 S	Snapdragon 865+	975	3357
Realme GT Neo 3	Dimensity 8100	966	3672
OPPO Find X3 Pro	Snapdragon 888	928	3357
Realme X50 Pro	Snapdragon 865	910	3205
Infinix Note 30 VIP	Dimensity 8050	854	3047
Redmi K30 Ultra	Dimensity 1000+	782	2890
Samsung Galaxy S20	Exynos 990	772	2590

3DMark Benchmark

	Chipset	Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL	Sling Shot Extreme Vulcan	Wild Life
OnePlus 9 Pro	Snapdragon 888	Maxed Out	Maxed Out	5775
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra	Exynos 2100	7736	6467	5741
Xiaomi Mi 11	Snapdragon 888	8274	8182	5663
Huawei Mate 40 Pro	Kirin 9000	9168	8401	5976
Asus ROG Phone 3	Snapdragon 865+	7645	7002	4127
Realme X50 Pro	Snapdragon 865			3791
Black Shark 3	Snapdragon 865	7215	6606
Redmi K30 Ultra	Dimensity 1000+	6614	6143
OnePlus 7T	Snapdragon 855+	6278	5504
Black Shark	Snapdragon 855	5791	5030

In 3DMark we see where HiSilicon have focussed their efforts, the 24-core Mali G78 GPU decimates the competition.

In the Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL test the Mate 40 Pro scores 20% higher than the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865+ on the Asus ROG Phone 3 and 38% higher than the Redmi K30 Ultra using MediaTek’s top of the range chipset.

As far as generational improvements go, the Kirin 9000 offers more than double the performance than the Kirin 990 on the Huawei P40 Pro with a 106% difference.

Things are just as impressive with the Sling Shot Extreme Vulcan test being 20% ahead of the SD865+, 37% ahead of the Dimensity 1000+, and ever so slightly under double the performance of the previous generation Kirin 990 5G (98.4%)

What else is known about the Huawei Mate 40 Pro?

My original post was based on the many leaks about the phone, but a quick recap:

• Display: 6.76 inches AMOLED 90Hz 2772 x 1344
• Chipset: Kirin 9000 5G (5 nm)
• RAM: 8GB / 12GB
• Storage: 256GB / 512GB
• Rear Camera:
  • 50 MP, f/1.9, 23mm (wide), 1/1.28″, 1.22µm, omnidirectional PDAF, OIS
  • 12 MP, f/3.4, 125mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom
  • 20 MP, f/1.8, 18mm (ultrawide), PDAF
  • TOF 3D, (depth)
• Front Camera:
  • 13 MP, f/2.4, (wide)
  • TOF 3D, (depth/biometrics sensor)
• Battery: 4400mAh with 66W charging and 50W wireless
• Other Features:
  • Stereo speakers
  • IP68

Overall

For the time being, the HiSilicon Kirin 9000 takes the performance crown comfortably outperforming the older Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Plus.

During the launch, Huawei was a little cheeky with their marketing speak stating that other companies haven’t been able to launch 5nm yet. This is technically true, but Samsung have announced the 5nm Exynos 1080 and Apple are the first company to launch a 5nm chipset with the Apple A14. Qualcomm with their later launch cycle will announce the 5nm SD875 in December.

Mediatek remains a mystery, last year they were the first to announce a flagship, but it took months to materialise in a phone, there is no word on its successor yet.

With HiSilicon still using CPU architecture a year behind the up and coming 2021 flagship chipsets, the advantages the Kirin 9000 has will be short-lived when the SD875 becomes official. While the Qualcomm chipset will definitely beat HiSilicon with CPU performance it will be interesting if anyone can match the GPU performance.

For me at least, performance has become so good in mid-range and flagship chipsets that I struggle to notice real-world differences between one brand and the next. The Huawei P40 Pro performs just as well as my Realme X50 Pro. Things like battery performance have become more important to me nowadays.

It is sad that this may be the last flagship chipset from HiSilicon for a while, as much as I love Qualcomm chipsets, with them having such a dominant market share it will inevitably stifle future advancements.