In the past couple of weeks, three major chip makers, namely Qualcomm, Samsung and Huawei unveiled their flagship processors for 2016. Huawei was the first to take the wraps off its Kirin 950 chip, followed by Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 and finally, last week, even Samsung joined the party by announcing the Exynos 8890 chipset.

Now we have three major chips that will soon enter mass production. All the three chips bring tremendous improvements from its previous generation models, now faster and more efficient than before.

So, we decided to take a look at these three chips and compare them to see whether the newly announced Kirin 950 can compete with market leaders such as Samsung and Qualcomm. I know many of you would want to see Helio X20 included in this comparison but we will compare them all in another article. Here, we would like to see whether Huawei has done enough to take on the newly announced Exynos 8890 and Snapdragon 820.

Kirin 950 vs Snapdragon 820 vs Exynos 8890

MANUFACTURING NODE:

First of all, lets take a look each chip’s manufacturing node. I am sure many of our readers would already know that the smaller the size of the manufacturing node, the better it is for the chip. At present, flagship chips such as Exynos 7420 are manufactured using the efficient 14nm FinFET process. Samsung was one of the first ones to successfully develop this technology for mass production of mobile chipsets and has used this process for both Exynos 7420 and the latest Exynos 8890 chip. Since its currently the best technology out there, even Qualcomm has resorted to Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process for its Snapdragon 820. On the other hand, Huawei’s Kirin 950 is built using TSMC’s 16nm process.

Technically, 14nm manufacturing node should be faster and efficient than 16nm. However, that’s not always the case. We have seen in case of iPhone 6S, there are two known chip variants, one built on TSMC’s 16nm process and the other on Samsung’s 14nm process. Interestingly, there were some difference in the performance between these devices (read more about it from here) and the iPhone powered by the TSMC’s 16nm chip turned out to be better. So, in spite of using a slightly larger 16nm node, Huawei’s Kirin 950 could be as efficient as the Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890.

CPU CORES:

Another important difference between these three chips is the CPU cores. Huawei went with standard ARM Cores (4 x A72 + 4 x A53) while Samsung features four custom Exynos M1 cores along with a cluster of standard ARM cores (4 x Custom Cores + 4 x A53). Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 features all four custom Kryo cores in two cluster formation (2 x Kryo HP + 2 x Kryo LP).

So, which ones better? Well, Huawei features four standard ARM Cortex A72 cores which are very powerful along with four Cortex A53 cores which are efficient in a big.LITTLE architecture. We have got a glimpse of the performance of the chip in a prototype device and the results were impressive. In comparison, the Samsung Exynos 8890 comes with four custom Exynos M1 cores and four standard ARM Cortex A53 cores. While we are unsure of the actual specifications of the custom cores, the company claims that they are 30 percent faster than previous generation 7 series and uses up to 10 percent less power. As for Snapdragon 820, Qualcomm has decided to use just four custom cores (Kryo), down from eight on the 810. The new Kryo cores inside the Snapdragon 820 are said to be twice as powerful as the previous generation. However, we will have to see whether the decision to reduce the cores inside the new chip will affect its multi-core performance significantly.

Now that we know what’s inside each of these chips, it time to see which ones better. Its hard to say that for sure at the moment, but on paper, Exynos 8890 seems to be the winner. It features four powerful custom Exynos M1 cores along with quad Cortex A53 which company claims is 30 percent more powerful than the already impressive Exynos 7 series octa generation. So, its likely that the big.LITTLE architecture on the 8890 will beat both Snapdragon 820 and Kirin 950. Also, with just four custom cores, Snapdragon 820 is unlikely to beat Kirin 850, but that remains to be seen. So, if we had to arrange them in the order of performance from highest to lowest, Exynos 8890 will probably be on top followed by Kirin 950 and then Snapdragon 820.

As for the co-processor, Kirin 950’s i5 is supposed to be ultra-power saving, translating into better battery life. Even Hexagon 680 DSP which controls some tasks for the CPU in Snapdragon 820, boasts of improved efficiency and faster process times. So, overall power consumption on both the chips should be reduced.

GPU:

Coming to the next important part of the chip, i.e. GPU, both Kirin 950 and Exynos 8890 feature Mali-T880. On the other hand, the Snapdragon 820 comes with Adreno 530 on board. While the GPU is Mali-T880 on Huawei and Samsung chips, they differ in terms of the number of cores. Samsung’s chip comes with Mali-T880 MP12 GPU which features 12 cores, on the other hand Kirin 950 comes with a four core Mali-T880 MP4. Kirin 950’s four cores are clocked at 900MHz, higher than Samsung’s. Still, with twelve cores at its disposal Samsung’s 8890 will be able to render 3D and high-end graphic games smoother than Kirin 950.

As for the Adreno 530, we are not quite sure how well it performs as compared to the Mali counterpart. Previously, Adreno had an edge over Mali GPUs but with Mali-T880 it could change. Unfortunately, we can’t be sure of that at the moment. So, for now, in the GPU department, it looks like Kirin 950 with its quad-core GPU is lagging behind both Snapdragon 820 and Exynos 8890.

LTE CONNECTIVITY:

As for connectivity, the Kirin 950 features Cat. 6 LTE networks. This turned out to be surprising given that they could have used a better LTE chip. On the other hand, both Samsung and Qualcomm made the right move integrating high speed Cat. 12 / Cat. 13 LTE chip inside their processors with peak download speeds of up to 600Mbps.

In the end, we feel that the Exynos 8890 is better than the Kirin 950 in most areas. But both Snapdragon 820 and Kirin 950 are mighty contenders as well. So we will have to wait for their real life performance to actually judge which one turns out be the leader next year.

As for just talking about Kirin 950, we feel Huawei has come a long way as a chip maker and the latest release is just an example of their ability to develop and release fast and efficient chips on their own.

So, what do you think about these three chips? Do you think Samsung can retain its top position in the market (in terms of performance) with its new Exynos 8890?

The post Kirin 950 vs Snapdragon 820 vs Exynos 8890: Can Huawei Take On Samsung & Qualcomm? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Yesterday, Huawei officially unveiled the Kirin 950 chipset with quad Cortex A72 cores clocked at 2.53GHz and quad Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. Later in the evening, the company confirmed that the upcoming Huawei flagship, the Huawei Mate 8 will feature this chip.

The Kirin 950 seems to be a great chip on paper and we would really like to see its performance in real life. With Huawei Mate 8’s launch just a couple of weeks away, we will soon be able to judge the real life performance of the chip. In fact, in the initial test rig set out by Huawei at yesterday’s event, the Kirin 950 powered smartphone managed to score a whopping 83000 points on AnTuTu which is better than any other chip we have seen lately.

Moreover, with Mate 8’s high-end specs and 1080p display (since Huawei doesn’t believe 2K is required on smartphones), the performance should be pretty good. According to a recent listing on GFXBench, we came to know some of the possible specifications of the Mate 8 handset. The flagship will be powered by Kirin 950 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. There will be a 1080p 6-inch display up front. As for the camera, you can expect to see a 16MP shooter at the back along with an 8MP front facing one. The specs are definitely going to be high-end, so the overall performance should be better than most other phones we have seen recently.

With the efficient yet powerful Kirin 950, the phone should definitely attract the interests of power users. Stay tuned to the site for more updates on the Mate 8 flagship.

The post Huawei Confirms Mate 8 Will Feature Kirin 950, More Specs Leaked! appeared first on Gizmochina.

After months of rumors and speculations, Huawei has officially announced the Kirin 950 chipset in China. The company had a special event for the unveiling in the capital city, Beijing earlier today.

The Kirin 950 chipset will come with four Cortex A72 cores clocked at 2.53GHz and four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz. The A72 cores will make sure that the phone delivers super fast performance while the A53 cores will maintain efficiency of the chip. Unsurprisingly, the chip will be using the big.LITTLE architecture and will be built on the 16nm FinFET process from TSMC. There will be the Mali-T880MP4 GPU on board which Huawei claims is 100% better than Kirin 930’s GPU. Also, the chip will support Cat. 6 LTE networks ensuring download speeds of up to 300MBps.

Another interesting thing about the new Kirin 950 chip is the i5 co-processor on board. This is an always on processor which can work together with Cortex A72 and A53 cores for the best performance. The best part of the i5 co-processor is that its super efficient, using just 6.5mA, that’s 90% drop from the 90mA as compared to its previous generation i3 processor. This controls the various sensors on board the chip even when the phone is in sleep, which means you can expect tremendous improvement in the battery life, especially in the standby mode.

Also, like the previous Kirin 930 and 920 chipset, the new Kirin 950 comes with VoLTE which should enable better voice calls. Overall, it looks like the Kirin 950 a worthy upgrade to the existing Kirin 930.

In case, you are wondering about the benchmarks, the chip powering a device was kept in the presentation, and the phone scored about 83,000 on the AnTuTu benchmark. That’s better than existing chips like Exynos 7420.

Anyways, we expect the Kirin 950 powered Huawei Mate 8 to be announced on November 26, which is just a couple of weeks away. So, stay tuned for more details.

The post Huawei’s Kirin 950 Chip Is Official, Features Cortex A72 & i5 co-processor appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei was supposed to incorporate the upcoming Kirin 950 chipset inside the Huawei Mate S that was announced earlier this month. However, the company sticked with its existing Kirin 935 chipset, the same one that powers the Huawei P8 and the Honor 7.

To be honest, Kirin 935 is not really a full fledged flagship SoC, given that there are many chips in the market that can easily outperform it. Agreed that the Cortex A53 cores will offer better battery life, but then performance matters a lot in a flagship device.

Well, it looks like we won’t have to wait too long to see the next generation Kirin 950 chip and if rumors are to believed, then the upcoming processor will be quite powerful. Huawei’s CEO Yu Chengdong had earlier hinted that the Kirin 950 was going to be very powerful, even faster than Mediatek and Qualcomm chipsets.

According to the latest information, Huawei will debut its Kirin 950 chipset next month and there will be at least two smartphones before the end of this year that will be powered by this processor. One of these will be the Huawei Honor 7 Plus, which is expected to launch sometime before the end of 2015. The second smartphone to feature Kirin 950 is believed to be the Huawei Mate 8.

As for the specs, the Kirin 950 chip will be based on the TSMC 16nm process. It is said that TSMC’s issues with 16nm FinFET is the reason for the delay of the chip to the end of the year. The SoC will feature quad Cortex A72 cores and quad Cortex A53 cores with a maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz. There will be ARM Mali T880 GPU on board, with support for LPDDR4 dual channel RAM, UFS 2.0 and eMMC 5.1. Further, the chip will come with a self developed ISP, i7 co-processor, Tensilica Hi-Fi 4 independent audio DSP and support for LTE Cat. 10 connectivity.

As you can see, the specs reveal that the Kirin 950 is aimed for the high-end market. The Cortex A72 cores will make sure that the performance is top-notch while the remaining four Cortex A53 cores will help maintain power efficiency. In fact, in the leaked Geekbench benchmark result, the Kirin 950 reportedly scored 1909 in single-core and 6096 in multi-core test. That’s way higher than the powerful Exynos 7420 in both the test (1486 & 4970 respectively).

Anyways, before we get too excited with the news, let wait for some more details about the chip. Huawei has not yet officially announced any details about its Kirin 950 nor has it revealed any event for next month. So, lets hope to hear more about the chip in the coming days.

The post Huawei Kirin 950 Chip Details Leaked, Coming Next Month? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Huawei’s HiSilicon chip making division has come a long way in the past few years. From being a tiny chip manufacturer, the company now has big plans to compete with existing rivals such as Mediatek and Qualcomm. In this regard, the company seems to be taking big moves.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 supported Cat. 9 LTE networks which was much better than the Cat. 7 and 6 bands supported by other rival chipsets. Huawei’s Kirin 930 and 940 chipsets supported Cat. 6 and Cat. 7 band respectively, which meant it was slightly below Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 in terms of connectivity.

However, according to a report from China Mobile, it looks like Huawei’s Hisilicon Kirin 950 chipset will support Cat. 10 LTE networks which will be much faster than Cat. 9. This will put Kirin chipsets at par with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series as even the Snapdragon 820 chip is expected to support this high speed network. Other chipsets which support Cat. 10 include Intel’s XMM 7360 and Samsung’s Exynos 333 modem.

We don’t see a Mediatek chipset in the report which supports Cat. 10, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility of a Mediatek chip supporting this high speed network band in the future.

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