How much is the Samsung Galaxy S23 chip worth in real conditions? We tried Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

The first phone of the year equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 has passed through our hands. What’s to get a good idea of ​​what awaits us in terms of power in the flagships of 2023.

Do you know IQOO (pronounced as IQ, intelligence quotient in English)? Is it a sub-brand of the Vivo group founded in 2019 with a strong gaming identity whose smartphones are currently only released in China?

So why tell our French readers about it? Well, imagine that one of their latest flagships, the IQOO 11, is already equipped with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip. The Vivo France team has a copy and allows us to spend the afternoon on the plane. Beyond the LTPO 4 screen or its V2 chip dedicated to photography, the phone above all allows us to have a good idea of ​​the chips you’ll find in all high-end phones from 2023 as well as the Samsung Galaxy S23 .

Admittedly, we’ve been able to launch benchmarks on phones with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, but that is reference design, meaning phones that are built by Qualcomm for reference and therefore optimized for the little onion. IQOO 11 for its part is a commercial product that is already on sale. Therefore, we can consider its performance a reliable indicator of what we can expect from this chip in real conditions.

Result: The new Snapdragon beats the iPhone 14 Pro

Here are the results we got on the AnTuTu 9 benchmark and 3D Mark’s Wild Life Extreme. We chose to compare three phones with three different high-end chips. Asus Zenfone 9 with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, Samsung Galaxy S22 with Exynos 2200 and iPhone 14 Pro equipped with A16 Bionic.

First observation, the new chips are everywhere up front. We see that it is mainly the GPU section that stands out, as it garnered almost 200,000 points more than the iPhone 14 Pro and more than 110,000 more than Asus on the AnTuTu 9 GPU section. We logically find this advantage over Wild Life , which measures graphics performance, with over 2 FPS more (i.e. a 10% increase) than the iPhone 14 Pro and 6 FPS more than the Asus Zenfone 9 , an improvement close to 25%.

On the other hand, we can also point to the fact that CPU power has not grown much. In fact, the IQOO 11 even lags behind these two main competitors, by a few points, but still lags behind.

Great for Samsung

If you want to equip yourself with Samsung in 2023, there’s plenty to get excited about. Indeed, the Galaxy S23 is expected to switch to a configuration with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. There, the gap with the Exynos 2200 is unrivaled. The score on Wildlife increased by 120% while the general result on AnTuTu 9 increased by almost 53%. However, it should be noted that it is not impossible that every Galaxy S23 does not have the same power. Indeed, Samsung is expected to equip its base S23 with a simple graphite sheet, while the S23 Plus is expected to have a heat pipe system and the S23 Ultra can rely on the best of the three systems, the vapor chamber.

As far as cooling goes, let’s add that the IQOO 11 is pretty impressive in this regard. After two hours of chaining benchmarks and games Genshin Impact, he remained cold. So sure, this could be a sign of a better heating-managing chip, but let’s temper our enthusiasm.

On Genshin Impact, be aware that the game runs smoothly at Maximum settings and a stable 60 FPS. Fluidity and comfort are on the same level as we know them on the iPhone 14 Pro. What a treat. Also, the phone heats up less than Apple.

The IQOO 11 incorporates a fairly sophisticated cooling system with a 4000mm² vapor chamber and a frame that should reduce the temperature inside the device by 2°C. Bear in mind that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has had major heating issues in its early days. These first grips convince us about the future of Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. The first tests will allow us to understand it.

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