Exynos 7904 vs. Snapdragon – Which is Better

Qualcomm has released some impressive mid-range processors in the past few years. The Snapdragon 660 is one of their most dominant chipsets in the 600-series. These chipsets are used to power many different smartphones, but there are new players on the market. Samsung released the Exynos chipset series, which quickly became a serious competitor to the 600-series.

The Exynos 7904 is a powerful mid-range chipset with an octa-core processor that can handle all tasks seamlessly. The Exynos 7904 and the Snapdragon 660 are very close in most categories, but let’s see which one is better.

Performance

Both chipsets utilize Samsung’s 14nm LPP FinFET process nodes. The 14nm process nodes are old technology when compared with the Snapdragon 855 or the A12 Bionic with 7nm process nodes. Smaller nodes are a critical factor in achieving power efficiency.

The 660 packs eight Kryo 260 cores clustered into two groups. There are four “Performance” semi-custom Cortex-A73 cores which are with speeds of 2.2GHz, and four “Efficiency” semi-custom Cortex A-53 cores working at 1.7GHz. The change from the standard Cortex microarchitecture resulted in improved power efficiency and speed, plus lower latency.

When it comes to GPUs, the Snapdragon 660 is fitted with a mid-range, node-based Adreno 512 GPU that provides excellent performance and efficiency. It’s a 14nm GPU, clocked at 850MHz with API supports for OpenGL ES and Vulcan 1.0. The Exynos 7904 houses the Mali-G71 MP2 GPU, as well as a 16nm node-based GPU clocked at 770MHz. It provides the same graphics API support as the 660. The small MHz advantage makes the 660 a better choice for gaming.

Camera and Display

In this category, Samsung’s Exynos 7904 is the clear winner, because it packs one 32-megapixel camera or a pair of 16-megapixel cameras. Samsung claims that the CPU is able to work with a triple camera setup as well.

The Snapdragon 660 also supports a dual 16-megapixel camera setup or a single 25-megapixel sensor camera. However, it also includes Qualcomm Clear Sight and Qualcomm Spectra 160 ISP, which provide accurate color reproduction and clear photos.

However, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 offers better display support than the Exynos 7904. It can support 4K external displays, and it has Quad HD support for resolutions of up to 2560×1600 pixels. The Exynos, on the other hand, offers a Full HD display as well as a Full HD+ display. You can enjoy Full HD videos at 130 fps and Ultra High Definition videos at 30 fps.

Charging and Connectivity

Samsung’s and Qualcomm’s chipsets are almost identical when it comes to connectivity. They both support LTE Cat.12 for upload (600Mbps) and LTE Cat.13 for download (150Mbps). The only difference is that the Snapdragon 660 has Bluetooth 5.0 support, while the Exynos has an older Bluetooth 4.2 version.

Most of the Snapdragon 600-series chipsets come with the Quick Charge 4.0 fast charging technology. It provides fast charging rates and improved battery efficiency. It would take you only a few minutes to charge your battery for two hours of usage. That’s especially helpful for people who travel a lot or those who regularly forget to charge their phones.

The Exynos 7904 also has fast-charging technology, but Samsung isn’t forthcoming about the specifics, so we can’t exactly say how it compares.

AI

Since the 660 is one of the most dominant processors in the series, it comes with a number of unique features, including AI. It has full NPE SDK support that works with Caffe/Caffe2 and TensorFlow. The processor can handle word matches, phrase identification, scene recognition, and other useful features. Samsung’s Exynos 7904 should also come with some AI features, but the company isn’t sharing any details, so we can’t say anything more.

And the Winner Is…

This was an exceptionally fierce mid-range chipset battle because both contestants are so evenly matched. Overall, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660 provides better performance with its custom Kryo cores and the Adreno 512 graphics unit. Samsung lost the battle for mid-range chipsets because the Exynos 7904 doesn’t have what it takes to knock the 660 out of the race.

Which processor do you prefer, Samsung’s Exynos 7904 or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 660? Tell us what you think in the comment section.