We have the Galaxy S24s in our hands, all new smartphones from Samsung. This is an opportunity to take stock of the performance differences observed between the Samsung Galaxy S24 (Exynos 2400) and S24 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3).
Samsung has opted for a significant change for its new Galaxy S24 range. The Korean group equips its Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus models with its own chip, the Exynos 2400, in Europe and India. Furthermore, the most high-end model, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, will be equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.
This choice marks the return of the Exynos chip in Samsung’s Galaxy S series, an approach observed with caution. Indeed, the Exynos used in the Galaxy S22 had encountered criticism for overheating, performance and battery life problems. Despite this, Samsung is striving to upgrade its Exynos series with this new iteration.
We decided to include the ROG Phone 8 Pro in this comparison, the latter has the latest high-end chip from Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This allows us to have a good overview of the capabilities of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. in two different chassis.
The chips in question
The Exynos 2400 features a 10-core processor, including a 3.16 GHz Cortex-X4, two 2.9 GHz Cortex-A720s, three more 2.6 GHz Cortex-A720s, and four low-power Cortex-A520s at 1.95 GHz. In comparison, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is equipped with an 8-core CPU, offering up to 3.2 GHz for Cortex-X4, 2.9 GHz for Cortex-A720, 2.6 GHz for other Cortex -A720 and 2.0 GHz for Cortex-A520.
| Exynos 2400 | Samsung Exynos 2400 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Engraving | 4nm (Samsung 4LPP+) | 4nm (TSMC N4) |
| Prime | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.2 GHz | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz |
| big | 2x Cortex-A720 @ 2.9 GHz | 5x Cortex-A720 @ 3.2 GHz |
| Mid | 3x Cortex-A720 @ 2.6 GHz | – |
| Small | 4x Cortex-A520 @ 2 GHz | 2x Cortex-A520 @ 2.3 GHz |
| GPU | Samsung Xclipse 940 based on AMD RDNA 3 | Qualcomm Adreno 750 |
In terms of graphics performance, the Exynos 2400 includes an Xclipse 940 GPU, designed based on the AMD RDNA 3 architecture, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is equipped with an Adreno 740 GPU.
Our results
So what does this give? Let’s start with the positives. The Exynos SoC recorded an impressive performance in Geekbench 6, with a score of 2072 in single thread and 6565 in multi-threaded, slightly outperforming the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 average. However, this score is obtained with slightly higher power consumption. Furthermore, we do not observe this trend in the other benchmarks.
| Model | Samsung Galaxy S24 | Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra | Asus ROG Phone 8 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu 10 | 1722457 | 1875639 | 2105923 |
| AnTuTu CPU | 427031 | 457922 | 442704 |
| AnTuTu GPU | 680048 | 741621 | 880348 |
| AnTuTu MEM | 323844 | 366871 | 427773 |
| AnTuTu UX | 291534 | 309225 | 355098 |
| PC Mark 3.0 | 18232 | 17957 | 21763 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme | 4294 | 4571 | 5178 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme average framerate | 25.71 FPS | 27.38 FPS | 31 FPS |
| GFXBench Aztec Vulkan/Metal high (onscreen / offscreen) | 96/65 FPS | 99 / 83 FPS | 122/90 FPS |
| GFXBench Car Chase (onscreen / offscreen) | 99 / 111 FPS | 105 / 132 FPS | 135 / 156 FPS |
| GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 (onscreen / offscreen) | 119 / 248 FPS | 120 / 338 FPS | 165 / 378 FPS |
| Geekbench 6 Single-core | 2072 | 1985 | 2213 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi-core | 6565 | 6409 | 6973 |
| Geekbench 6 Compute (Vulkan) | 15568 | 17263 | 16583 |
| Sequential read/write | 2170 / 996 MB/s | 2500 / 1190 MB/s | N/C |
In practice, the performance of the two chips varies. Although the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 often outperforms the Exynos 2400 in many benchmarks, especially in terms of graphics power, there are situations where the Exynos 2400 performs better, such as in the case of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. raytracingcertainly thanks to AMD’s expertise (the benchmark 3DMark Solar Bay allows you to measure that).
Despite this, it appears that the Exynos 2400 of the Galaxy S24 displays an overall performance lower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 of the Galaxy S24 Ultra. With higher consumption and lower performance, however, it differs from its predecessor, the Exynos 2200, in one difference. Notably, no overheating issues were observed on the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus. Additionally, the performance gap between the S24 and S24 Ultra isn’t as big as in the past. However, we will have to carry out our tests to the end, particularly the autonomy tests which take a little more time with our protocol. Perhaps the difference will then be more palpable.
It’s also important to note that the Galaxy S24 (and 24 Plus) and S24 Ultra have different chassis designs. The Galaxy S24 Ultra, with its more advanced and massive cooling system, can therefore obtain better results in benchmarks. We will also make sure to observe the behavior of the network hook, the Wi-Fi too, because the two SoCs share different modems. Same observation for photography and video, with different image signal processors (ISP).
Finally, the remarkable performance of ROG Phone 8 Pro deserves special attention, it outperforms all Galaxy S24 models, regardless of the chip used. This suggests possible surprises from other smartphone manufacturers such as OnePlus, Oppo, Xiaomi, Honor, etc.