A Comparison of the Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845

 

The Snapdragon 865, 855, and 845 are all found in the latest generation of Android smartphones. Which one's best? Which ones can you expect to see in future devices? Is there any reason not to upgrade your device now? Let's look at the differences between these processors so you can make an informed decision!

 

An overview of each processor

The Snapdragon 865 is an upgraded version of last year's flagship processor. It improves overall performance by 15% and cuts power consumption in half compared to the previous year's chips. Of course, most consumers don't care about any of that. The best way to decide whether a new processor is for you is to look at how it performs in real-world applications. Based on early tests, there doesn't seem to be a vast difference between these processors in terms of performance—which shouldn't be surprising given they're so similar. That said, there are some key differences worth considering if you plan on buying a new smartphone next year...

 

Performance testing with Geekbench

Using Geekbench, we can get a pretty good idea about how well these processors will perform in real-world situations. The graph below shows single-core performance for each processor: As you can see, the 855 is about 10% faster than its predecessor (the 845), which is still fast enough to comfortably tackle most tasks. The chip's multi-core score is also significantly higher than that of its predecessors—this doesn't necessarily mean it's better at handling multiple tasks simultaneously, but simply that it can hold more work in parallel. This might be useful if you like running computationally intensive apps while browsing Facebook or YouTube at home or commuting to work.

 

Performance testing with Antutu

3DMark Sling Shot is a benchmarking program that evaluates gaming performance by rendering real-time frames. To test your CPU's capabilities with 3Dmark, choose Ice Storm Extreme under Graphics Tests when you launch it from Steam. The Ice Storm Extreme subtest measures graphics (GPU) performance. Choose Ice Storm Unlimited under Graphics Tests when you launch it from Steam to measure CPU/GPU performance (mostly GPU). Click here for more information on 3DMark Sling Shot. Before we start testing your processor's ability to run slingshot, we'll review some information about how to get accurate results. First things first: download and install 3Dmark!

 

Performance testing with 3DMark Slingshot

3DMark is a long-running gaming benchmark from UL (formerly Futuremark) that can give us an idea of how high-end smartphones perform. The onscreen test, which runs at 720p, puts more stress on GPU performance than CPU performance. In all our tests here, we try to control for differences in display quality by using identical displays when possible; by default, we use an iPhone XS Max running iOS 12.1 with a 2018 iPad Pro with ApApple'srue Tone feature turned off to approximate typical smartphone viewing conditions. We will also provide data for other display types if requested.