Foundries and designers improve and change over time for better or for worse.
Mediatek now has truly competitive SoC when just a few years ago it was worse than Samsung, so maybe, just maybe Samsung proved to Qualcomm it can manufacture the snapdragon as it was designed.
I was truly surprised to find out that MediaTek isn't a dumpster fire anymore. I got a Moto G 2025 with a Dimensity 6300 recently for $25, and it's actually a decent snappy phone.
I remember when Helio was the worst of the worst SoCs.
All they had to do was switch to a more reasonable core layout (also tsmc). In the past generation or 2 they went crazy packing performance cores in which brute forced the efficiency.
A lot of older Mediatek chips were all small (e.g. Cortex A53) cores with low clock speeds. Those sucked and still exist in some super low end parts like the Helio G36, which also suck to use. Stuff like the Dimensity 6300 or Helio G99 are pretty low end too, but at least have a pair of larger Cortex A76 cores to help make things a bit snappier.
People like to say that but never post any proof (and no "trust me bro" is not proof).
The only kind-of-scientific benchmarks that gets posted shows like a 10% difference and that's when they hammer the modem for 6 hours straight. Real world usage should be even less of a difference.
So when people say it's an "Achilles heel", they are talking about it being like 5% behind.
In before a bunch of people who will tell me the modem is bad for sure. They just can't prove it in any way that is testable and repeatable. But they are 100% convinced that whatever issue they have experienced is because of the modem. If you have a Snapdragon device then we are all open to the idea that some issue can have multiple different explanations and to figure out what is happening we need to do some troubleshooting. If your device has an Exynos chip then it is automatically the modem's fault every single time.
And Pixels make up a fraction of Exynos modem-equipped devices, none of which have the litany of modem issues the Pixels do. Anyway, this logic is stupid.
The Tensor chips use reference Arm designs, yet are the lowest performing and most inefficient chipsets around. By your logic, the Arm designs are the issue (despite the likes of MediaTek showcasing that excellent chips can be had with reference core implementations).
It is also a widely observed sentiment that the covid vaccine made people magnetic. Just because a lot of people says something does not mean it is true.
Even if it is true that the "reliability tanked" when they switched (according to what metrics?), we still don't know if it is because of the modem. It could just as well have been because of the antenna design. It could also have been Google's software. It could have been a particular model of modem that was bad but newer models aren't... It could be a wide range of things which is why I keep saying we need scientific testing before reaching any conclusions.
The general "sentiment" doesn't even seem to agree what the issue is. Some say it heats up a lot. Some say it uses a lot of power. Some say the reception is bad. Some say the reception is good but the speeds are worse. Some say the power and speeds are good but they have to restart their phone because it stops working every now and again. That is why I want to see some scientific tests and not just go on vibes like a lot of people do. There does not seem to be any consensus about what the issue is other than "Exynos modem bad, trust me bro".
The Snapdragon 810 was released in mid 2014, that's almost 12 years ago... (edit: maybe 11, if we consider when it actually reached phones we could buy)
The 810 was really bad (I know, I had one!), but I think a lot of that was caused by Qualcomm rushing 64-bit support to keep up with Apple. The Apple A8 from that year also used TSMC's "20nm" and wasn't that bad, so it couldn't be just a bad node.
Everyone that made the move to Samsung around 2020 (Qualcomm, NVIDIA, etc) tried to move away as soon as possible. Unfortunately for us, they're just not as good, and it's hard to deny this when you have the SD8G1 from Samsung performing much worse than the SD8G1+ made by TSMC. Samsung itself is forced to avoid their own fabs on flagships and it's not because they can't put a few ARM cores together.
For everyone's sake, I hope Samsung improves, but we must be realistic: Samsung Foundry has been way behind TSMC for some years now.
Right, but if one company manages to get a bad node to work and another doesn't, then it's not just the node.
In any case, this is all history. Wins from 11 or even 7-8 years ago (SD835/845) won't help us today. I hope they stay in the fight because it's important to have good alternatives to TSMC.
Since 4Lpp (3rd gen of 4nm) Samsung node is good, Exynos 2400 was fine roughly 10% behind 8 gen 3, as of now most major Companies do return to Samsung node, Nvidia is rumoured to use 2nm with Rtx 6xxx series, Tesla signed that 16B USD deal, Qualcomm now want to return etc.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 exists because fabricating on TSMC yields better chips when compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 produced from Samsung foundry. those two are literally the same chip, but one simply moves to another producer.
888, 888+, 8Gen1 all three times samsung foundry made a relatively modern flagship Qualcomm chipset, it was bad. so it's so far 3 for 3. Hence the concern is valid.
Add the 7G1 too. Last year I got a M55 for seemingly a decent spec phone, but this shit heat up bad even with battery saving on (which cap clock speed at 70%) while I just opening a web page, after a few days I returned it
We should keep in mind that the Apple A8 was using the same TSMC 20 nm node and wasn't as bad as the 810, so it couldn't be just the node. The Exynos 7420 on the other hand used 14nm.
I think it's very likely that the reason why the 810 was so bad (I had a better experience with the older 801!) was that Qualcomm created a sh1tty SoC because they were caught off guard by Apple's switch to 64-bit.
If I'm not mistaken the 810 used some custom big cores that were very close to ARM A57. Exynos used stock A57 cores and didn't have the issues Qualcomm had.
SD810 was stock cores because Qualcomm was caught off guard by Apples 64-bit switchover and wanted to have the same thing ASAP. They didn't have the time for their usual customizations.
Intel 20A was cancelled in favour of 18A so I don’t know where you got that comparison from. How do you know the transistor density of a product that never existed?
18A is also going for Performance/Watt as well, with BSPD and RibbonFET, rather than pure transistor density. So it isn’t even a good metric to base things on.
SF2 is reported as having a transistor density of 231 MTr/mm2 and the various flavors of TSMC N3 has between 197 and 224. So if we just go by transistor density SF2 should be ahead TSMC N3(E/P/X), but there is more to nodes than just transistor density.
We will have to wait for real products to show up before we can start drawing conclusions.
What if they clocked it 10% lower which in itself would lower the power consumption from over 19w to just under 11w (TSMC version)? Samsung SF2P can be 20% worse yet still produce a compelling new SOC that runs cooler. Don't pretend Qualcomm hasn't done that with TSMC.
Also we are talking about the next node here. Exynos 2600 might even prove even SF2 isn't 20% worse, so SF2P could be just 5% worse.
Foundries and designers improve and change over time for better or for worse.
Mediatek now has truly competitive SoC when just a few years ago it was worse than Samsung, so maybe, just maybe Samsung proved to Qualcomm it can manufacture the snapdragon as it was designed.
Let's see
I was truly surprised to find out that MediaTek isn't a dumpster fire anymore. I got a Moto G 2025 with a Dimensity 6300 recently for $25, and it's actually a decent snappy phone.
I remember when Helio was the worst of the worst SoCs.
What did MediaTek change to make their newer chips not be as trash as their older ones?
they seems to just sticking to arm core design and have a close relationship with TSMC, which is the basic of most decent qualcomm soc
All they had to do was switch to a more reasonable core layout (also tsmc). In the past generation or 2 they went crazy packing performance cores in which brute forced the efficiency.
That reminds me Mediatek made tri-cluster 10 core SoC, Helio X30.
A lot of older Mediatek chips were all small (e.g. Cortex A53) cores with low clock speeds. Those sucked and still exist in some super low end parts like the Helio G36, which also suck to use. Stuff like the Dimensity 6300 or Helio G99 are pretty low end too, but at least have a pair of larger Cortex A76 cores to help make things a bit snappier.
Pretty good answers here, but it's also that MediaTek finally improved their firmware.
In what way did they improve the firmware?
The main issue I usually see is that the modem is the Achilles heel, the rest of the components are pretty decent
People like to say that but never post any proof (and no "trust me bro" is not proof).
The only kind-of-scientific benchmarks that gets posted shows like a 10% difference and that's when they hammer the modem for 6 hours straight. Real world usage should be even less of a difference.
So when people say it's an "Achilles heel", they are talking about it being like 5% behind.
In before a bunch of people who will tell me the modem is bad for sure. They just can't prove it in any way that is testable and repeatable. But they are 100% convinced that whatever issue they have experienced is because of the modem. If you have a Snapdragon device then we are all open to the idea that some issue can have multiple different explanations and to figure out what is happening we need to do some troubleshooting. If your device has an Exynos chip then it is automatically the modem's fault every single time.
As soon as pixels switched to Samsung modems their signal became reliability tanked and that is a widely oberservable sentiment
And Pixels make up a fraction of Exynos modem-equipped devices, none of which have the litany of modem issues the Pixels do. Anyway, this logic is stupid.
The Tensor chips use reference Arm designs, yet are the lowest performing and most inefficient chipsets around. By your logic, the Arm designs are the issue (despite the likes of MediaTek showcasing that excellent chips can be had with reference core implementations).
It is also a widely observed sentiment that the covid vaccine made people magnetic. Just because a lot of people says something does not mean it is true.
Even if it is true that the "reliability tanked" when they switched (according to what metrics?), we still don't know if it is because of the modem. It could just as well have been because of the antenna design. It could also have been Google's software. It could have been a particular model of modem that was bad but newer models aren't... It could be a wide range of things which is why I keep saying we need scientific testing before reaching any conclusions.
The general "sentiment" doesn't even seem to agree what the issue is. Some say it heats up a lot. Some say it uses a lot of power. Some say the reception is bad. Some say the reception is good but the speeds are worse. Some say the power and speeds are good but they have to restart their phone because it stops working every now and again. That is why I want to see some scientific tests and not just go on vibes like a lot of people do. There does not seem to be any consensus about what the issue is other than "Exynos modem bad, trust me bro".
If this is true it's great for consumers. TSMC needs some competition.
Only if it's good. The 888 and SD8G1 were ass because Samsung made them.
Everyone always refers back to that. Nobody remembers when the Samsung s6 skipped the snapdragon 810 for exynos because of thermals.
And besides, this is not talking about using exynos at all, but the Samsung foundry.
SD 835 and 845 too were made by Samsung like 8 years ago and they were top soc at that time.
Samsung lost lead after tsmc 7nm.
835 was a classic
I was using it until a few weeks ago, it was still enough for basic usage.
845 was made by Samsung?? I used a phone with that CPU for 6 years and had no idea
Lol, scrolling this thread with my Tab S4 which uses that chipset.
The Snapdragon 810 was released in mid 2014, that's almost 12 years ago... (edit: maybe 11, if we consider when it actually reached phones we could buy)
The 810 was really bad (I know, I had one!), but I think a lot of that was caused by Qualcomm rushing 64-bit support to keep up with Apple. The Apple A8 from that year also used TSMC's "20nm" and wasn't that bad, so it couldn't be just a bad node.
Everyone that made the move to Samsung around 2020 (Qualcomm, NVIDIA, etc) tried to move away as soon as possible. Unfortunately for us, they're just not as good, and it's hard to deny this when you have the SD8G1 from Samsung performing much worse than the SD8G1+ made by TSMC. Samsung itself is forced to avoid their own fabs on flagships and it's not because they can't put a few ARM cores together.
For everyone's sake, I hope Samsung improves, but we must be realistic: Samsung Foundry has been way behind TSMC for some years now.
TSMC planar 20nm was hot garbage.
Even Apple needed to keep frequency way down to keep energy efficiency decent on the A8.
And yes, it was a foundry issue since Samsung had the Exynos 7420 with much higher efficiency than the 810 built on their own 14nm FinFET.
Right, but if one company manages to get a bad node to work and another doesn't, then it's not just the node.
In any case, this is all history. Wins from 11 or even 7-8 years ago (SD835/845) won't help us today. I hope they stay in the fight because it's important to have good alternatives to TSMC.
Since 4Lpp (3rd gen of 4nm) Samsung node is good, Exynos 2400 was fine roughly 10% behind 8 gen 3, as of now most major Companies do return to Samsung node, Nvidia is rumoured to use 2nm with Rtx 6xxx series, Tesla signed that 16B USD deal, Qualcomm now want to return etc.
Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 exists because fabricating on TSMC yields better chips when compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 produced from Samsung foundry. those two are literally the same chip, but one simply moves to another producer.
Agreed. This is about foundry capability and yield consistency, not Exynos branding. That distinction often gets lost.
888, 888+, 8Gen1 all three times samsung foundry made a relatively modern flagship Qualcomm chipset, it was bad. so it's so far 3 for 3. Hence the concern is valid.
Exynos 2600 seems decent. That should be the benchmark to use
It's because the node was outdated. If Samsung truly has a 2nm node that competes with TSMC then it will be good.
They don't. Their current SF2 node is just a renamed SF3.
It's at best a TSMC 3nm competitor.
Names are pointless though. They all lie
Add the 7G1 too. Last year I got a M55 for seemingly a decent spec phone, but this shit heat up bad even with battery saving on (which cap clock speed at 70%) while I just opening a web page, after a few days I returned it
ah shit here we go again
Hmm let's just hope it won't be like the snapdragon 8 gen 1 again
Moore's law goes brrrrrrr.
2nm from Samsung would be interesting, especially if it helps with efficiency and thermals.
If they do, theirs going to be worse in performance and heat production then the TSMC one. Like back in the day with Gen1.
Don't call 4 years ago back in the day please.
But we got The Snapdragon 810 fiasco on TSMC back in 2015, while Exynos 7420 on Samsung was a good SoC.
We should keep in mind that the Apple A8 was using the same TSMC 20 nm node and wasn't as bad as the 810, so it couldn't be just the node. The Exynos 7420 on the other hand used 14nm.
I think it's very likely that the reason why the 810 was so bad (I had a better experience with the older 801!) was that Qualcomm created a sh1tty SoC because they were caught off guard by Apple's switch to 64-bit.
If I'm not mistaken the 810 used some custom big cores that were very close to ARM A57. Exynos used stock A57 cores and didn't have the issues Qualcomm had.
810 was the result of bad design + bad node
Exynos was bad design + good node, and A8 is good design + bad node
And I remember 810 use A57, only after that (820) did they finally create the first arm64 SD custom core
SD810 was stock cores because Qualcomm was caught off guard by Apples 64-bit switchover and wanted to have the same thing ASAP. They didn't have the time for their usual customizations.
it uses Arm Cortex-A57, which is a shit cores slapped together as a response to Apple's 64-bit chip.
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Intel 20A was cancelled in favour of 18A so I don’t know where you got that comparison from. How do you know the transistor density of a product that never existed?
18A is also going for Performance/Watt as well, with BSPD and RibbonFET, rather than pure transistor density. So it isn’t even a good metric to base things on.
Where do you get your information from?
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Lol love the honesty. It's really hard to compare future nodes because everyone has different metrics and it's all rumors.
But, one thing I can say, Qualcomm is testing both TSMC , Samsung, and Intel versions. If they chose Samsung, then I'm sure they have reasons
Get this man a CEO position at an A.I. company immediately.
So delete your other comment?
SF2 is reported as having a transistor density of 231 MTr/mm2 and the various flavors of TSMC N3 has between 197 and 224. So if we just go by transistor density SF2 should be ahead TSMC N3(E/P/X), but there is more to nodes than just transistor density.
We will have to wait for real products to show up before we can start drawing conclusions.
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Did you pull these claims out of your a$$?
What if they clocked it 10% lower which in itself would lower the power consumption from over 19w to just under 11w (TSMC version)? Samsung SF2P can be 20% worse yet still produce a compelling new SOC that runs cooler. Don't pretend Qualcomm hasn't done that with TSMC.
Also we are talking about the next node here. Exynos 2600 might even prove even SF2 isn't 20% worse, so SF2P could be just 5% worse.