Snapdragon 821 vs Snapdragon 4 Gen 5
We compared the 4-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 (Adreno 530) with the newer 8-core Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 (Adreno 629) SoC. Here you will find the pros and cons of each chip, technical specs, and comprehensive tests in benchmarks, like AnTuTu and Geekbench.
Review
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
Pros of Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
- Supports 75% higher memory bandwidth (29.8 against 17 GB/s)
Pros of Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 5
- Has a smaller size transistor (4 versus 14 nm)
- Has 4 more cores
- Shows significantly better (up to 2x) AnTuTu 11 score – 624K vs 312K
- Higher GPU frequency (~29%)
- Performs 29% better in floating-point computations
- Better instruction set architecture
Benchmarks
Performance tests in popular benchmarksAnTuTu 11
| CPU | 84002 | 233766 |
| GPU | 72699 | 61522 |
| Memory | 62840 | 155235 |
| UX | 92820 | 173498 |
| Total score | 312361 | 624021 |
| Samples | Less than 3 | Less than 3 |
GeekBench 6
Single-Core Score
Multi-Core Score
| Asset compression | 43.4 MB/sec | - |
| HTML 5 Browser | 26.6 pages/sec | - |
| PDF Renderer | 35.3 Mpixels/sec | - |
| Image detection | 9.82 images/sec | - |
| HDR | 35.1 Mpixels/sec | - |
| Background blur | 1.79 images/sec | - |
| Photo processing | 7.1 images/sec | - |
| Ray tracing | 993.9 Mpixels/sec | - |
| Samples | 21 tests | Less than 3 |
Compute Score (GPU)
| Background blur | 1.2 images/sec | - |
| Face detection | 1.09 images/sec | - |
| Horizon detection | 0.04 Gpixels/sec | - |
| Edge detection | 0.05 Gpixels/sec | - |
| Gaussian blur | 0.01 Gpixels/sec | - |
| Stereo matching | 1.1 Gpixels/sec | - |
| Particle physics | 51.3 FPS | - |
| API | Vulkan | - |
PCMark 3.0
PCMark 3.0
| Web score | 3763 | - |
| Video editing score | 5829 | - |
| Data manipulation score | 4163 | - |
| Photo editing score | 11521 | - |
| Writing score | 4882 | - |
Specifications
Full list of technical specifications of Snapdragon 821 and Snapdragon 4 Gen 5CPU
| Architecture | 2x 2.342 GHz – Kryo 2x 1.6 GHz – Kryo |
2x 2.4 GHz – Cortex-A78 6x 2 GHz – Cortex-A55 |
| Cores | 4 | 8 |
| Frequency | 2342 MHz | 2400 MHz |
| Instruction set | ARMv8-A | ARMv8.2-A |
| L1 cache | 64 KB | - |
| L2 cache | 1 MB | - |
| Process | 14 nanometers | 4 nanometers |
| Transistor count | 2 billion | - |
| TDP (Sustained Power Limit) | 11 W | - |
| Manufacturing | Samsung | Samsung |
Graphics
| GPU name | Adreno 530 | Adreno 629 |
| Architecture | Adreno 500 | Adreno 600 |
| GPU frequency | 653 MHz | 840 MHz |
| Pipelines | 1 | 1 |
| Shading units | 256 | 256 |
| Total shaders | 256 | 256 |
| FLOPS | 334.3 Gigaflops | 430.1 Gigaflops |
| Vulkan version | 1.0 | 1.3 |
| OpenCL version | 2.0 | 3.0 |
| DirectX version | 11 | 12.1 |
AI Accelerator
| Neural processor (NPU) | Hexagon 680 | Yes |
Memory
| Memory type | LPDDR4 | LPDDR4X |
| Memory frequency | 1866 MHz | 2133 MHz |
| Bus | 4x 16 Bit | 2x 16 Bit |
| Max bandwidth | 29.8 Gb/s | 17 Gb/s |
| Max size | 8 GB | 8 GB |
Multimedia (ISP)
| Storage type | eMMC 5.1, UFS 2.0 | UFS 2.2, UFS 3.1 |
| Max display resolution | 3840 x 2160 | 2520 x 1200 |
| Max camera resolution | 1x 28MP, 2x 13MP | 1x 108MP, 2x 16MP |
| Video capture | 4K at 30FPS | 4K at 30FPS |
| Video playback | 4K at 30FPS | 4K at 30FPS |
| Video codecs | - H.264 - H.265 - VP8 - VP9 |
- H.264 - H.265 - VP9 |
| Audio codecs | - AIFF - CAF - MP3 - MP4 - WAV |
- AAC - AIFF - CAF - MP3 - MP4 - WAV |
Connectivity
| Modem | X12 | - |
| 4G support | LTE Cat. 12 | - |
| 5G support | No | Yes |
| Download speed | Up to 600 Mbps | Up to 2800 Mbps |
| Upload speed | Up to 150 Mbps | Up to 900 Mbps |
| Wi-Fi | 5 | 5 |
| Bluetooth | 4.1 | 5.1 |
| Navigation | GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo | GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, NAVIC |
Info
| Announced | August 2016 | May 2026 |
| Class | Flagship | Low end |
| Model number | MSM8996 Pro-AC | SM4850 |
| Official page | Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 official site | Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 official site |
| Successor | - Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 | - |
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