Articles on the recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite smartphone chip document single-thread Geekbench scores of around 3,200. By comparison, MediaTek estimates that the Dimensity 9400 will hit 3,055 in a lab environment. Derating this by 7% (the proportion MediaTek reduced its normal-temp versus lab Antutu result) puts the D9400 in the 2,851 neighborhood. Assuming performance depends only on the CPUs involved, the scores indicate the 8 Elite’s Oryon CPU is 12% faster than the Dimensity’s Arm Cortex-X925.
The fastest Qualcomm Oryon core clocks 19% higher than the X925, implying the latter has a per-cycle throughput (IPC) advantage. It’s hard to raise IPC and maintain clock rate, although designers usually manage to improve both. Also, MediaTek and Qualcomm both employed licensed Arm cores in the past, but MediaTek’s ran slower and required less die area, even in the same process. For example, the Dimensity 9300 ran its fastest Cortex-X3 at 3.2 GHz, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in standard trim ran its X3 at 3.36 GHz (5% faster).
A 12% advantage confers bragging rights but not much else. The enthusiasts who purchase flagship Android smartphones might care but probably won’t be able to attribute differences between devices to peak single-thread CPU performance. A smartphone OEM will select Qualcomm or MediaTek to supply processors on multiple criteria. PC enthusiasts are sensitive to CPU-performance differences. If PC processors employing the Cortex-X925 emerge to compete with the Oryon-based Snapdragon X, we’ll get additional data points about which is the superior CPU—and how Arm stacks up against x86.
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