Snapdragon 820 vs A10 Fusion

We compared two 4-core processors: Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (with Adreno 530 graphics) and Apple A10 Fusion (PowerVR GT7600). Here you will find the pros and cons of each chip, technical specs, and comprehensive tests in benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Geekbench.

Review

General comparison of performance, power consumption, and other indicators
CPU Performance
Single and multi-core processor tests
Gaming Performance
GPU performance in games and OpenCL/Vulkan
Battery life
Efficiency of battery consumption
NanoReview Score
Overall chip score

Key Differences

Main differences and advantages of each chip
Pros of Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
  • Supports 100% higher memory bandwidth (29.8 against 14.9 GB/s)
  • Has a smaller size transistor (14 versus 16 nm)
Pros of Apple A10 Fusion
  • Shows significantly better (up to 55%) AnTuTu 11 score – 516K vs 333K
  • Higher GPU frequency (~27%)
  • 9% higher CPU clock speed (2340 vs 2150 MHz)

Benchmarks

Performance tests in popular benchmarks

AnTuTu 11

The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
A10 Fusion +55%
516981
CPU 131994 202669
GPU 36166 63274
Memory 63256 84317
UX 102461 166721
Total score 333877 516981
Samples Less than 3 Less than 3
AnTuTu results from iOS and Android are not directly comparable! They won't affect NanoReview scores.

GeekBench 6

The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Single-Core Score
A10 Fusion +148%
882
Multi-Core Score
A10 Fusion +141%
1484
Asset compression 28.8 MB/sec 57.7 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 19.7 pages/sec 38.7 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 28 Mpixels/sec 44.8 Mpixels/sec
Image detection 6.36 images/sec 14.2 images/sec
HDR 25.9 Mpixels/sec 56.1 Mpixels/sec
Background blur 1.39 images/sec 4.38 images/sec
Photo processing 6.33 images/sec 13.5 images/sec
Ray tracing 789.4 Mpixels/sec 1.7 Mpixels/sec
Samples Less than 3 4 tests
Compute Score (GPU)
A10 Fusion +758%
4352
Background blur 1.58 images/sec 11 images/sec
Face detection 0.86 images/sec 9.32 images/sec
Horizon detection 0.06 Gpixels/sec 0.13 Gpixels/sec
Edge detection 0.09 Gpixels/sec 0.17 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 0.05 Gpixels/sec 0.4 Gpixels/sec
Feature matching 0.01 Gpixels/sec 0.04 Gpixels/sec
Stereo matching 4.09 Gpixels/sec 10.9 Gpixels/sec
Particle physics 81.6 FPS 415.5 FPS
API OpenCL Metal
Samples - 2 tests
Compute results use different APIs (Metal vs Vulkan/OpenCL) and are not directly comparable!

3DMark

A cross-platform benchmark that assesses graphics performance in Vulkan (Metal)
3DMark Wild Life Extreme
Score - 693
Stability - 85%
Graphics test - 4 FPS

PCMark 3.0

Benchmark for evaluating overall system performance in everyday workloads
PCMark 3.0
Web score 4378 -
Video editing score 5152 -
Data manipulation score 4144 -
Photo editing score 11831 -
Writing score 5024 -

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2024-01-05 (Saber)GeekBench CPU356 / 615
Apple A10 Fusion
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2025-08-15 (hellz1)GeekBench GPU4352
πŸ“˜ 2024-02-21 (Cap1bara_tech)GeekBench CPU882 / 1484

Specifications

Full list of technical specifications of Snapdragon 820 and A10 Fusion

CPU

Architecture 2x 2.15 GHz – Kryo
2x 1.593 GHz – Kryo
2x 2.34 GHz – Hurricane
2x 1.05 GHz – Zephyr
Cores 4 4
Frequency 2150 MHz 2340 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8-A ARMv8-A
L1 cache 64 KB 64 KB
L2 cache 1 MB 3 MB
L3 cache - 4 MB
Process 14 nanometers 16 nanometers
Transistor count 2 billion 3.3 billion
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 11 W 5 W
Manufacturing Samsung TSMC

Graphics

GPU name Adreno 530 PowerVR GT7600
Architecture Adreno 500 PowerVR Series7XT (Rogue)
GPU frequency 510 MHz 650 MHz
Pipelines 1 6
Shading units 256 32
Total shaders 256 192
FLOPS 261.1 Gigaflops 249.6 Gigaflops
Vulkan version 1.0 1.1
OpenCL version 2.0 1.2
DirectX version 11 -

AI Accelerator

Neural processor (NPU) Hexagon 680 No

Memory

Memory type LPDDR4 LPDDR4
Memory frequency 1866 MHz 1333 MHz
Bus 2x 32 Bit 2x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 29.8 Gb/s 14.9 Gb/s
Max size 8 GB 4 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Storage type eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.0 NVMe
Max display resolution 3840 x 2160 2048 x 1536
Max camera resolution 1x 28MP, 2x 13MP 1x 32MP, 2x 12MP
Video capture 4K at 30FPS 4K at 30FPS
Video playback 4K at 30FPS 4K at 30FPS
Video codecs - H.264
- H.265
- H.264
- H.265
- VC-1
- Motion JPEG
Audio codecs - AIFF
- CAF
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV
- AAC
- AIFF
- CAF
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV

Connectivity

Modem X12 Qualcomm MDM9645M
4G support LTE Cat. 12 LTE Cat. 12
5G support No No
Download speed Up to 600 Mbps Up to 600 Mbps
Upload speed Up to 150 Mbps Up to 100 Mbps
Wi-Fi 5 5
Bluetooth 4.1 4.2
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo

Info

Announced November 2015 September 2016
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number MSM8996 APL1W24
Official page Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 official site -
Successor - Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 - Apple A19 Pro

Cast your vote

So, which SoC would you choose?
16 (17.8%)
74 (82.2%)
Total votes: 90

Comments

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