Apple A13 Bionic vs Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus 5G

Apple A13 Bionic

The Apple A13 Bionic is a System on a Chip (SoC) from Apple that is found in the iPhone 11 series. It was announced late 2019 and offers 6 cores divided in 2 performance cores and four power efficiency cores. Compared to the previous A12 Bionic, the A13 should offer a 20% improved CPU performance at 40% lower power (according to Apple).

With 8.5 billion transistors, the A13 Bionic is a big chip especially compared to the Snapdragon 835 (3 Billion) or a Skylake desktop quad-core Soc (1.75 Billion).

Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 1

The Qualcomm Snapdragon G3x Gen 1 (model number: SG8175P) is a revised version of the Snapdragon 888+ 5Gwhich is intended for use in Android-based gaming handhelds and tablets.

The SoC (system-on-a-chip) integrates a fast ARM Cortex-X1-based "Kryo 680 Prime Core" with up to 3.00 GHz and three additional fast Kryo 680 Gold performance cores (Cortex-A78-based) with up to 2.42 GHz. To save power, four additional Kyro 680 Silver (ARM Cortex-A55 based) cores have also been integrated, which operate at up to 1.8 GHz. An Adreno 660 is responsible for graphics acceleration.

The integrated Snapdragon X60 5G modem enables download speeds of up to 7.5 Gbit/s and upload speeds of up to 3 Gbit/s and supports DSS, mmWave and Sub6. The integrated FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi modem supports all common standards, including Wi-Fi 6E with 6 GHz. Bluetooth version 5.2 is on board.

The SoC is manufactured using the 5 nm EUV process.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 Plus 5G

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ (Plus) 5G Mobile Platform is a high-end SoC for smartphones that was introduced in mid 2021 and manufactured in 5 nm at Samsung. 

Integrates one “Prime Core” based on a ARM Cortex-X1 architecture clocked at up to 3 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 clock at up to 1.8 GHz. In addition to the processor cores, the SoC integrates a WiFi 6e modem, a Hexagon 780 DSP (up to 26 TOPS of AI performance) 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.

Compared to the older Snapdragon 888, the 888+ offers a slightly higher clocked prime core (+160 MHz) and a 23% faster Hexagon 790 DSP. Therefore, it is now the fastest Android SoC (at the time of announcement), but still slightly slower (CPU and GPU) than the Apple A14 and A15 Bionic SoCs.