Snapdragon 860 vs 765G vs 732G vs 732G vs Dimensity 800 Benchmarks – The Poco X3 Pro reusing an old flagship chipset yields a huge performance advantage vs mid-range

When the Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 was first announced, I expressed some criticism towards Qualcomm; rebranding an existing chipset seems lazy and a marketing gimmick.

However, I am not opposed to the reusing of old chipsets, I thought it was a superb idea with the Realme X3 SuperZoom. It is likely Qualcomm saw the value in this but wanted to make it a bit more consumer-friendly by giving old chipsets new names.

I recently received the Poco X3 Pro to review, which should be live at some point next week, but for now, let’s see how this new-old chipset performs against chipsets used in phones at a similar price point. Basically, this is all the Snapdragon 7 series phones and the more recent Dimensity based phones.

Poco X3 Pro vs Poco X3 NFC

Poco X3 NFC

Before I delve into the numbers, it is worth pointing out that the Poco X3 Pro is a bit of an odd phone.

It has had a massive upgrade vs the preceding Poco X3 NFC thanks to the new chipset, superior base config and faster storage.

Things like the battery and display all remain the same.

However, the camera has had a significant downgrade, dropping from the superb (for budget phones) 64 MP Sony IMX682 down to the older 48MP Sony IMX 582. Similarly, the ultra-wide has dropped from 13MP to 8MP.

So, picking the Poco X3 Pro over the X3 NFC isn’t quite as easy as deciding if you can afford the extra 50 to 70 Euros (UK stock isn’t available yet).

Poco X3 Pro

Snapdragon 860 vs 765G vs 732G vs 732G vs Dimensity 800 Benchmarks Specification

SoC SD860 SD720G SD732G SD750G SD765G Dimensity 800
CPU 1 x2.96GHz Cortex A76 2x Kryo 465 (CA76) @ 2.3GHz

2x 2.3 GHz – Kryo 470 Gold (Cortex-A76) 2x Cortex-A77
@ 2.2GHz
1x Cortex A76 @ 2.4GHz (765G)
1x Cortex-A76 @ 2.2GHz
4 ARM Cortex-A76@2.0GHz
3 x 2.42GHz Cortex A76
4 x 1.80GHz Cortex A55 6x Kryo 465 (CA55)@ 1.8GHz 6x 1.8 GHz – Kryo 470 Silver (Cortex-A55) 6x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz 6x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz 4 ARM Cortex-A55@2.0GHz
GPU Adreno 640 @ 672MHz Adreno 618 Adreno 618 810Mhz Adreno 619
+10% perf over 730G
Adreno 620 @ 625MHz
+38% perf vs 730G
ARM Mali-G57 MC4
Memory Controller LPDDR4X up to 2133 MHz 2x 16-bit @ 1866MHz
LPDDR4X
2x 16-bit @ 1866MHz
LPDDR4X
14.9GB/s
2x 16-bit 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 17.0GB/s 2x 16-bit 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 17.0GB/s 2x 16-bit 2133MHz LPDDR4X / 17.0GB/s
Fabrication Process 7nm 8nm LPP 8nm LPP Samsung
8nm (8LPP)
Samsung
7nm EUV (7LPP)
TSMC 7nm N7

In terms of spec, the SD860 is vastly superior to all the other chipsets, offer a 1x3x4 CPU design with four A76 cores, a significantly better GPU, all while being on the 7nm fabrication process, which is still small and efficient by today’s standards.

It is worth noting that the Snapdragon 860 is 4G, while the SD855+ could be 5G. It was optional if they included the 5G modem. So, in this case, to make phones more affordable, it made no sense here.  If your budget is under £250 for a phone, I think you can live without 5G (or pay £50 extra for the Poco F3)

Snapdragon 860 vs 765G vs 732G vs 732G vs Dimensity 800 Benchmarks

Antutu Benchmarks

  Total CPU GPU MEM UX
Poco X3 Pro – SD860 476271 134294 191563 82818 67596
Realme 7 5G – Dimensity 800 329068 104445 86478 65762 72383
Realme X50 – SD765G 323286 103663 94151 68007 57462
Poco X3 – SD732G 301581 103403 79234
Realme 7 – Helio G95 287963 97262 83992 55016 51693
Realme 8 Pro – SD720G 283961 100274 70466 53007 60214
Xiaomi Redmi Note 8 Pro – Helio G90T 281295 98263 79755 57285 45992
Realme 6 Pro – SD720G 282336 104143 70801 52273 55119
Realme X2 – SD730G 258311 98328 67574 47945 44464

Antutu has recently switched to V9, but I found a V8 copy to try and accurately compare against.

As we can see, the two-year-old tech in the Snapdragon 860 completely destroys all the mid-range chipsets.

There is a 44.7% performance advantage vs the Snapdragon 765G, which is still used in many premium-priced phones such as the Pixel 5 and Oppo Reno 4 Pro 5G.

There is a 58% advantage vs the SD73G found on the Poco X3 NFC and a 67.7% advantage over the just launched Realme 8 Pro.

3DMark Benchmarks

  Slingshot Extreme OpenGL Wild Life
Xiaomi Redmi K40 / Poco F3
SD870
Max 4221
Poco X3 Pro – SD860 Max 3428
Huawei P40 Lite – Kirin 820 4131 1892
TCL 10 5G – Snapdragon 765G 3331 1682
Oppo Reno4 Z
Dimensity 800
3258 1669
Realme 7 5G
Dimensity 800U
3127 1587
Poco X3 NFC – SD732G 2702 839
Realme 8 Pro- SD20GG 2590 780

3DMark has also been messing around with their benchmarks, they are clearly trying to do away with the Slingshot Extreme test. The OnePlus 9 Pro was the first phone I have seen with a Max score result, but this now extends down to the Poco X3 Pro too. So it is Wild Life that needs to be used now.

Therefore, for a couple of the below results, I had to pull the official figures for Wild Life because I had not tested with it when I had the phone in for review. Whilst at it, I also copied the official figure for the Redmi K40 / Poco F3.

Here we see a similar massive performance gap between the SD860 and the midrange chipsets, basically more than double any of the Snapdragon 7 series phones.

PCMark Benchmarks

  PCMark Work PCMark Battery
Poco X3 Pro – SD860 8979 14h 33
Huawei P40 Lite – Kirin 820 8226 18h 41 min
TCL 10 5G – Snapdragon 765G 8175 12h 27
Poco X3 NFC – SD732 8325 23h 42
Realme 8 Pro – SD720G 8396 14h 29min
Oppo Reno4 Z
Dimensity 800
7863 16h 0min
Realme 7 5G
Dimensity 800U
8009 13h

PCMark results are always all over the place because each company tweaks their software for certain tasks differently.

The notable difference here is the 7.8% improvement in the PCMark score but a 10-hour reduction in battery performance vs the two Poco models. The Poco X3 NFC had a ludicrous battery performance, so it hardly seems fair to compare it to anything else. You certainly won’t be disappointed with the Poco X3 Pro battery, even if it is not as good as the X3 NFC.

Androbench Storage Benchmarks

I don’t seem to have a historical table with all the Androbench results, nor do I normally use it in my comparisons. However, the Poco X3 Pro has UFS3.1 vs UFS 2.1 of all the mid-range options.

In comparison to the Poco X3 NFC you get:

  • Sequential Read:
    • Poco X3 NFC: 504 MB/s
    • Poco X3 Pro: 1451 MB/s
  • Sequential Write:
    • Poco X3 NFC: 258 MB/s
    • Poco X3 Pro: 527 MB/s
  • Random Read:
    • Poco X3 NFC: 139 MB/s
    • Poco X3 Pro: 204 MB/s
  • Random Write:
    • Poco X3 NFC: 141 MB/s
    • Poco X3 Pro: 177 MB/s

Overall

There is clearly a massive benefit to be had by using an older flagship chipset for newer affordable phones. The Snapdragon 860 offers incredible performance when compared to chipsets that are used in similarly priced phones.

There are still not many Dimensity based phones in the UK, so it will be interesting to see how MediaTek will compete in terms of price/performance when they do finally have phones on the market.

Hopefully, we will see more phones using the SD860 and SD870 over the year, and this trend of reusing older tech continues for future generations.

Posted by Mighty Gadget Blog: UK Technology News and Reviews

Thanks for reading, check out Mighty Gadget Blog: UK Technology News and Reviews for more Tech news!

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