Snapdragon 835 vs A13 Bionic

We compared the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 (Adreno 540) with the newer 6-core Apple A13 Bionic (Apple A13 GPU) SoC. 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 835
  • Has 2 more cores
Pros of Apple A13 Bionic
  • Shows significantly better (up to 2.5x) AnTuTu 11 score – 1101K vs 438K
  • Higher GPU frequency (~73%)
  • Performs 73% better in floating-point computations
  • Has a smaller size transistor (7 versus 10 nm)
  • 8% higher CPU clock speed (2650 vs 2450 MHz)
  • Better instruction set architecture
  • Supports 14% higher memory bandwidth (34.1 against 29.8 GB/s)

Benchmarks

Performance tests in popular benchmarks

AnTuTu 11

The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
A13 Bionic +152%
1101851
CPU 148324 296803
GPU 101521 301818
Memory 88938 149834
UX 99233 353396
Total score 438016 1101851
Samples Less than 3 [47 tests]
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
A13 Bionic +310%
1749
Multi-Core Score
A13 Bionic +166%
3989
Asset compression 87.1 MB/sec 146.8 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 46.5 pages/sec 90.1 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 56.7 Mpixels/sec 103.5 Mpixels/sec
Image detection 15.6 images/sec 85.1 images/sec
HDR 48.2 Mpixels/sec 130.3 Mpixels/sec
Background blur 2.93 images/sec 13.9 images/sec
Photo processing 11 images/sec 38.5 images/sec
Ray tracing 2.23 Mpixels/sec 4.69 Mpixels/sec
Samples 2 tests 12 tests
Compute Score (GPU)
A13 Bionic +871%
13902
Background blur 3.08 images/sec 20.3 images/sec
Face detection 1.3 images/sec 25.6 images/sec
Horizon detection 0.08 Gpixels/sec 0.44 Gpixels/sec
Edge detection 0.11 Gpixels/sec 0.68 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 0.06 Gpixels/sec 0.77 Gpixels/sec
Feature matching 0.02 Gpixels/sec 0.19 Gpixels/sec
Stereo matching 5.03 Gpixels/sec 45.7 Gpixels/sec
Particle physics 105.3 FPS 1367.9 FPS
API OpenCL Metal
Samples - 8 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 Solar Bay
Score - 2564
Stability - 74%
Graphics test - 10 FPS
Section 1 - 12 FPS
Section 2 - 10 FPS
Section 3 - 7 FPS
3DMark Wild Life Extreme
A13 Bionic +444%
2001
Score 368 2001
Stability 97% 70%
Graphics test 2 FPS 11 FPS

PCMark 3.0

Benchmark for evaluating overall system performance in everyday workloads
PCMark 3.0
Web score 5581 -
Video editing score 5841 -
Data manipulation score 5696 -
Photo editing score 13302 -
Writing score 7633 -

Gaming

Table of average FPS and graphics settings in mobile games
PUBG Mobile - 57 FPS
[Ultra]
Call of Duty: Mobile - 60 FPS
[Ultra]
Fortnite - 60 FPS
[High]
World of Tanks Blitz - 60 FPS
[Ultra]
Genshin Impact - 59 FPS
[Ultra]
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang - 60 FPS
[Ultra]
Device - Apple iPhone 11 Pro
828 x 1792
We provide average results. FPS may differ, depending on game version, OS and other factors.

Recent User Tests

The latest benchmark tests that have been submitted by users
Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-05-13 (Lee)GeekBench CPU382 / 1166
πŸ“˜ 2023-09-25 (Nightshot)GeekBench CPU427 / 1500
Apple A13 Bionic
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-07 (nuri)AnTuTu1133524
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-07 (Ianzzzz)AnTuTu1090244
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-07 (Ianzzzz)AnTuTu1090244
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-04 (Feonton)AnTuTu915377
πŸ“˜ 2026-07-16 (Slarpunk)AnTuTu1109501

Specifications

Full list of technical specifications of Snapdragon 835 and A13 Bionic

CPU

Architecture 4x 2.45 GHz – Kryo 280 (Cortex-A73)
4x 1.9 GHz – Kryo 280 (Cortex-A53)
2x 2.65 GHz – Lightning
4x 1.6 GHz – Thunder
Cores 8 6
Frequency 2450 MHz 2650 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8-A ARMv8.4-A
L1 cache 128 KB 128 KB
L2 cache 2 MB 8 MB
Process 10 nanometers 7 nanometers
Transistor count 3 billion 8.5 billion
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 9 W 6 W
Manufacturing Samsung TSMC

Graphics

GPU name Adreno 540 Apple A13 GPU
Architecture Adreno 500 Apple Bionic GPU
GPU frequency 710 MHz 1230 MHz
Pipelines 4 4
Shading units 64 64
Total shaders 256 256
FLOPS 363.5 Gigaflops 629.8 Gigaflops
Vulkan version 1.0 -
OpenCL version 2.0 -
DirectX version 11 -

AI Accelerator

Neural processor (NPU) Hexagon 682 Apple Neural Engine
NPU theoretical performance - 5 TOPS

Memory

Memory type LPDDR4X LPDDR4X
Memory frequency 1866 MHz 2133 MHz
Bus 2x 32 Bit 4x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 29.8 Gb/s 34.1 Gb/s
Max size 8 GB 4 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Storage type UFS 2.1 NVMe
Max display resolution 3840 x 2160 2688 x 1242
Max camera resolution 1x 32MP, 2x 16MP -
Video capture 4K at 30FPS 4K at 60FPS
Video playback 4K at 30FPS 4K at 60FPS
Video codecs - H.264
- H.265
- VP9
- H.264
- H.265
- Motion JPEG
Audio codecs - AAC
- AIFF
- CAF
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV
- AAC
- AAX
- AAX+
- AC-3
- AIFF
- CAF
- E-AC-3
- MP3
- MP4
- WAV

Connectivity

Modem X16 -
4G support LTE Cat. 16 LTE Cat. 18
5G support No No
Download speed Up to 1000 Mbps Up to 1200 Mbps
Upload speed Up to 150 Mbps Up to 350 Mbps
Wi-Fi 5 6
Bluetooth 5.0 5.0
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo, QZSS, SBAS GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo

Info

Announced November 2016 September 2019
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number MSM8998 -
Official page Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 official site -
Successor - Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 - Apple A19 Pro

Cast your vote

So, which SoC would you choose?
21 (26.6%)
58 (73.4%)
Total votes: 79

Comments

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