The Vivo X90 Pro+ is the first Snapdragon 8 Gen 2-powered smartphone to hit Chinese stores. Since then, benchmarks have multiplied on the Internet. One of the most interesting focuses on the gaming aspect of the platform: its power, but also its stability. Compared to those of the A16 Bionic, the results are clear: the Qualcomm processor is well ahead. Explanations.
On the occasion of the Snapdragon Summit 2022, we had the opportunity to test a smartphone equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the new processor from Qualcomm. The results were very good, of course. They were not only better than the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1released only a few months before, but also better than those of the Apple A15 Bionic and A16 Bionicespecially on the GPU part.
Read also – Galaxy S23: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor could offer it phenomenal autonomy
These are measures to be taken with caution. Why ? Because the platform made available to us by Qualcomm during the Snapdragon Summit was not fully functional. Some bricks were missing that can weigh down the system. And everything was extremely optimized to deliver the best possible performance. In other words, these results do not reflect reality. To compare the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with the other components available in the market, you need a commercial model.
The first smartphone with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is available
And indeed, there is one available. It’s about Vivo X90 Pro+, successor to the excellent X80 Pro+ (we tested the standard version of the X80 Pro six months ago). The X90 Pro + is the first smartphone equipped with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to have been formalized and the first to arrive on the shelves of Chinese stores. It is therefore now possible to measure the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in real conditions and compare it with that of the latest Apple iPhones. And the results confirm the first impressions.
A smartphone tester on YouTube, Golden Reviewer, posted on Twitter the image that accompanies this article (see below). You can see two smartphones there: the iPhone 14 Pro Max on the left and the Vivo X90 Pro+ on the right. You can also see that both smartphones have undergone the same benchmark: Wild Life Extreme Stress Test, a most demanding 20-minute test from 3DMark (which we use very regularly in our own tests). The result is final.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is more stable than the A16 Bionic
The best loop of the X90 Pro+ reaches 3757 dotswhile that of the iPhone reaches 3354 dots. Worse still, the worst ball of the X90 Pro+ (3390 points) is above the best loop of the iPhone. And that’s not the only amazing detail: the stability of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is way above. It reaches 90.2%, unheard of for a high-end SoC from Qualcomm. In front, the iPhone reaches 70%. This means that Qualcomm’s processor is not only more powerful, but also more stable.
Has the Californian founder finally found the miracle recipe for the perfect gaming platform? It’s possible. However, there is one missing detail: temperature. This is one of the weak points of many high-end Snapdragons since the move to 64-bit architectures. Has temperature control been improved? This is the last challenge that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 must take up.