Smartphones get more powerful every year, and with big hitters like the Samsung Galaxy S23 around the corner, we thought it would be pertinent to take a trip down memory lane and contextualize where these performance improvements really come from. Geekbench scores are a great way to get a high-level overview of the computational improvements from one generation to the next. They don't tell us anything else about a chipset (or its power consumption), but they serve as a solid point of comparison.

The data collected here comes from Geekbench 5 scores of every Samsung flagship from the Galaxy S5 onwards, and it's created from a median of 250 benchmarks run on each base device. This removes outliers and accounts for more powerful (or even weaker) devices that spoof legitimate Samsung phones. As expected, each generation nets performance improvements, but the results are an interesting look into the progression of smartphones over the years.

About the data: The data was collected for each unlocked device, and the model numbers are listed below. While Geekbench doesn't cover all aspects of a chipset, you'll find comparisons between CPU capabilities of each chip below. We display the median of the results in our graphs, and the computed median was always close to the computed mean.

Device

Chipset

Model

Samsung Galaxy S5

Snapdragon 801

SM-G900F

Samsung Galaxy S5

Exynos 5422

SM-G900H

Samsung Galaxy S5

Snapdragon 805

SM-G901F

Samsung Galaxy S6

Exynos 7420

SM-G920F

Samsung Galaxy S7

Exynos 8890

SM-G930L

Samsung Galaxy S7

Snapdragon 820

SM-G930A

Samsung Galaxy S8

Exynos 8895

SM-G950N

Samsung Galaxy S8

Snapdragon 835

SM-G950U

Samsung Galaxy S9

Exynos 9810

SM-G960F

Samsung Galaxy S9

Snapdragon 845

SM-G960U1

Samsung Galaxy S10

Exynos 9820

SM-G973F

Samsung Galaxy S10

Snapdragon 855

SM-G973U

Samsung Galaxy S20

Exynos 990

SM-G986B

Samsung Galaxy S20

Snapdragon 865

SM-G980F

Samsung Galaxy S21

Exynos 2100

SM-G991N

Samsung Galaxy S21

Snapdragon 888

SM-G9910

Samsung Galaxy S22

Exynos 2200

SM-S901B

Samsung Galaxy S22

Snapdragon 8 Gen 1

SM-S901E

About Geekbench: Geekbench is a CPU-centric test that uses several computational workloads including encryption, compression (text and images), rendering, physics simulations, computer vision, ray tracing, speech recognition, and convolutional neural network inference on images. The score breakdown gives specific metrics. The final score is weighted according to the designer’s considerations, placing a large emphasis on integer performance (65%), then float performance (30%), and finally, cryptography (5%). It does not account for other improvements in the SoC or power consumption.

Samsung Galaxy: Exynos devices

Samsung-Geekbench-Over-Time-Exynos-Fixed

The progression of the company's Exynos processors since the Galaxy S5 has been interesting to look at. The Exynos 5422 is nowhere near what we would nowadays call a powerhouse, with a measly score of 176 in single-core and an equally weedy score of 322 in multi-core.

For context, the Samsung Galaxy S22 with its Exynos 2200 SoC boasts just shy of a 10x improvement in multi-core speeds and a 6.4x improvement in single-core speeds over the original Exynos 5422 that powered the Galaxy S5. That's a pretty major improvement (as expected) but shows how improvements are beginning to slow, as eight generations on, we don't see an 8x improvement in single-core scores.

The jump from the Exynos 8895 to the 9810 was probably the biggest overall, with a large increase in single and multi-core performance. This particular score jump is likely due to the switch from Exynos M2 cores to Exynos M3 cores and an upgrade from Cortex A53 cores to Cortex A55. With an increase in cache size from 2MB to 4MB as well, we would see a decrease in cache miss rates and, in turn, a further improvement in performance as the CPU should be able to fetch more instructions from the cache instead of from the slower main memory.

Further generations found a more even footing, with smaller but consistent increases of roughly 20% each time in single and multi-core performance.

Samsung Galaxy: Snapdragon devices

Samsung-Geekbench-Over-Time-Snapdragon-Fixed

Snapdragon chipsets are the cream of the crop in the Android world, and just like with the above Exynos results, these results show how far Qualcomm has come over the years. Starting off with single and multi-core scores of 156 and 445, respectively, we see massive leaps in both peaks with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and the Snapdragon 888. Given that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has its own fair share of problems, it's not too surprising to see it fall behind a little bit in the single-core department.

Interestingly, in contrast to the Exynos chipsets, there aren't any major jumps from one generation to the next. Instead, it's a relatively smooth and consistent improvement year over year.

You may also notice that the Samsung Galaxy S6 is missing: this is likely because of the problems that the Snapdragon 810 faced. It was the first 64-bit chip from Qualcommm and would overheat quite severely. It was even blamed for why the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P faced major bootlooping problems. Samsung instead went with Exynos for global devices that generation.

However, one thing is for sure: Qualcomm has always scored ahead of the same generation Exynos chipset in every Samsung device except in the case of the Exynos 2100.

Samsung Galaxy: Exynos and Snapdragon devices

Samsung-All-Devices-Geekbench-Graphs-Fixed

For the wider context of how Snapdragon and Exynos compare across generations, it's clear that they've always been close in performance. There is never a major digression in these chipsets' capabilities, with differences usually boiling down to power consumption or real-world performance. In normal usage, they are more or less equally comparable, and the difference in results between these chipsets can similarly be found between two results run on the same device in different conditions.

In short, these results show the neck-and-neck nature of the chipset performance race and how both Qualcomm and Samsung keep up with each other. Samsung appears to lag behind a little bit, but for the most part, both do quite well and Samsung is never too far behind Qualcomm in terms of its actual performance. There are many other ways to measure a chipset, and Geekbench measures one sole aspect of a device.

We're looking forward to the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, and with rumors suggesting a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy, it's possible that there may not even be an Exynos variant this year. We'll see!