Samsung's Exynos chipsets have been criticized a lot this year, especially the Exynos 990 that was used in the Galaxy S20 and the Galaxy Note 20. The Exynos 990's performance was sub-par and its power efficiency was low. Many loyal fans even wrote a petition to Samsung to stop using Exynos chipsets in high-end Galaxy devices. However, things could change dramatically next year.
The Exynos 1080 chipset, which was announced a couple of days ago, can compete with flagship processors from the competition. However, it is aimed at mid-range smartphones, and the real flagship chipset from Samsung is rumored to be the Exynos 2100 that will debut with the Galaxy S21 series. According to a tweet from leakster Ice Universe, Exynos 2100 is faster than the upcoming Snapdragon 875 SoC from Qualcomm.
Even the report from Android Police, which unveiled all the Galaxy S21 specs, said that the Exynos 2100's performance could be “on-par or better than the Snapdragon 875.” The report also stated that “the new Exynos will be a more power-efficient chip than prior generations, improving battery life.”
Exynos 2100 rumored specs
It is rumored that the Exynos 2100 is built using Samsung's 5nm EUV process. The company could put an end to its custom Mongoose CPU cores, which were largely responsible for low power efficiency in Exynos processors. The upcoming SoC is expected to feature one brand-new Cortex-X1 CPU core, three Cortex-A78 CPU cores, four Cortex-A55 CPU cores, and the Mali-G78 GPU.
The Cortex-X1 CPU core is designed to offer extremely high single-core performance, and combined with three Cortex-A78 cores, the Exynos 2100 could offer chart-topping CPU performance.
Samsung needs to improve Exynos' power efficiency, sustained performance
It remains to be seen how Samsung improves its new processor's performance under sustained loads such as gaming, continuous web browsing, and multitasking. Multiple comparative tests have shown that current-generation Exynos processors tend to overheat and throttle the clock speed after a few minutes of sustained workload. That's where the company needs to improve a lot compared to the Exynos 990 and previous-gen Exynos processors.
If rumors turn out to be true, and if Samsung has really managed to put an end to performance and power efficiency woes with its upcoming chipsets, Galaxy S21 users in Europe and other parts of the world can finally have what American and Chinese users of Galaxy smartphones have been enjoying for years: stable performance and good battery life.
