Home > Smartphone processors comparison > Exynos 990 vs A13 Bionic – what's better?

Exynos 990 vs A13 Bionic

Exynos 990
VS
A13 Bionic
Exynos 990
A13 Bionic

We compared the 8-core Samsung Exynos 990 (Mali-G77 MP11) with the older 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.

  1. Review
  2. Differences
  3. Benchmarks
  4. AnTuTu v11
  5. GeekBench 6
  6. Gaming
  7. Specs
  8. Comments (6)

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 Samsung Exynos 990
  • Has 2 more cores
  • Supports 29% higher memory bandwidth (44 against 34.1 GB/s)
Pros of Apple A13 Bionic
  • Higher GPU frequency (~48%)
  • Shows better (up to 21%) AnTuTu 11 score – 1101K vs 907K
  • Better instruction set architecture

Benchmarks

Performance tests in popular benchmarks
SoC:
Exynos 990
vs
A13 Bionic

AnTuTu 11

The AnTuTu Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios
Exynos 990
907140
A13 Bionic +21%
1101851
CPU 370196 296803
GPU 130687 301818
Memory 151878 149834
UX 254379 353396
Total score 907140 1101851
Samples [50 tests] [47 tests]
AnTuTu results from iOS and Android are not directly comparable! They won't affect NanoReview scores.
Submit your AnTuTu result

GeekBench 6

The GeekBench test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance
Single-Core Score
Exynos 990
1222
A13 Bionic +43%
1749
Multi-Core Score
Exynos 990
3060
A13 Bionic +30%
3989
Asset compression 139.9 MB/sec 146.8 MB/sec
HTML 5 Browser 80.6 pages/sec 90.1 pages/sec
PDF Renderer 99.8 Mpixels/sec 103.5 Mpixels/sec
Image detection 66.4 images/sec 85.1 images/sec
HDR 98.7 Mpixels/sec 130.3 Mpixels/sec
Background blur 10.4 images/sec 13.9 images/sec
Photo processing 30.6 images/sec 38.5 images/sec
Ray tracing 3.92 Mpixels/sec 4.69 Mpixels/sec
Samples 20 tests 12 tests
Compute Score (GPU)
Exynos 990
5261
A13 Bionic +164%
13902
Background blur 7.47 images/sec 20.3 images/sec
Face detection 3.84 images/sec 25.6 images/sec
Horizon detection 0.25 Gpixels/sec 0.44 Gpixels/sec
Edge detection 0.34 Gpixels/sec 0.68 Gpixels/sec
Gaussian blur 0.27 Gpixels/sec 0.77 Gpixels/sec
Feature matching 0.07 Gpixels/sec 0.19 Gpixels/sec
Stereo matching 15.8 Gpixels/sec 45.7 Gpixels/sec
Particle physics 955.5 FPS 1367.9 FPS
API OpenCL Metal
Samples 8 tests 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 Steel Nomad Light
Score 391 -
Stability 73% -
Graphics test 3 FPS -
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
Exynos 990
1416
A13 Bionic +41%
2001
Score 1416 2001
Stability 65% 70%
Graphics test 8 FPS 11 FPS

PCMark 3.0

Benchmark for evaluating overall system performance in everyday workloads
PCMark 3.0
Web score 10705 -
Video editing score 6884 -
Data manipulation score 8823 -
Photo editing score 30928 -
Writing score 11422 -
Phones tested 6 models -

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
Samsung Exynos 990
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-20 -> Jazari28AnTuTu 12993568
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-07 (ZailoxTM)AnTuTu 121144833
πŸ“˜ 2026-09-27 (Tomio.tomato)AnTuTu 121064880
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-16 -> SamsungS8HypeAnTuTu 111236527
πŸ“˜ 2026-08-14 (TimFire)AnTuTu 11868691
Add View all (67)
Apple A13 Bionic
DateBenchmarkResult
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-27 (Zephyr)AnTuTu 11964060
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-05 (Gigant)Geekbench 6 GPU13778
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-05 (Gigant)Geekbench 6 CPU1788 / 4241
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-05 (Gigant)AnTuTu 111115933
πŸ“˜ 2026-10-03 (Deni)AnTuTu 11824750
Add View all (66)

Specifications

Full list of technical specifications of Exynos 990 and A13 Bionic

CPU

Architecture 2x 2.73 GHz – Exynos M5
2x 2.5 GHz – Cortex-A76
4x 2 GHz – Cortex-A55		 2x 2.65 GHz – Lightning
4x 1.6 GHz – Thunder
Cores 8 6
Frequency 2730 MHz 2650 MHz
Instruction set ARMv8.2-A ARMv8.4-A
L1 cache 192 KB 128 KB
L2 cache 1 MB 8 MB
L3 cache 2 MB -
Process 7 nanometers 7 nanometers
Transistor count - 8.5 billion
TDP (Sustained Power Limit) 9 W 6 W
Manufacturing Samsung TSMC

Graphics

GPU name Mali-G77 MP11 Apple A13 GPU
Architecture Valhall 1st gen Apple Bionic GPU
GPU frequency 832 MHz 1230 MHz
Pipelines 11 4
Shading units 32 64
Total shaders 352 256
FLOPS 585.7 Gigaflops 629.8 Gigaflops
Vulkan version 1.3 -
OpenCL version 2.0 -

AI Accelerator

Neural processor (NPU) Yes Apple Neural Engine
NPU theoretical performance 15 TOPS 5 TOPS

Memory

Memory type LPDDR5 LPDDR4X
Memory frequency 2750 MHz 2133 MHz
Bus 4x 16 Bit 4x 16 Bit
Max bandwidth 44 Gb/s 34.1 Gb/s
Max size 16 GB 4 GB

Multimedia (ISP)

Storage type UFS 2.1, UFS 3.0 NVMe
Max display resolution 3840 x 2400 2688 x 1242
Max camera resolution 1x 108MP, 2x 25MP -
Video capture 8K at 30FPS, 4K at 120FPS 4K at 60FPS
Video playback 8K at 30FPS 4K at 60FPS
Video codecs - H.264
- H.265
- VP8
- 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 Exynos 5123 -
4G support LTE Cat. 24 LTE Cat. 18
5G support Yes No
Download speed Up to 7350 Mbps Up to 1200 Mbps
Upload speed Up to 3670 Mbps Up to 350 Mbps
Wi-Fi 6 6
Bluetooth 5.1 5.0
Navigation GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo

Info

Announced October 2019 September 2019
Class Flagship Flagship
Model number S5E9830 APL1W85
Official page Samsung Exynos 990 official site -
Successor - Samsung Exynos 2200 - Apple A19 Pro

Cast your vote

So, which SoC would you choose?
756 (45.5%)
906 (54.5%)
Total votes: 1662

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Comments

Please give your opinion on the comparison of A13 Bionic and Exynos 990, or ask any questions
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Avatar
Aaaa March 11, 2021 at 06:04 PM
The fact that so many people voted for exynos 990 shows how many Samsung fanboys there are who don’t want to see A13 have more votes. 990 is absolute trash.
+24 Reply
Avatar
Lloyd April 18, 2021 at 05:15 PM
I think your an Apple fanboy too. What is the point of calling a flagship processor "trash"?
+89 Reply
Avatar
Qarta July 3, 2021 at 08:50 AM
Lloyd, The Snapdragon 865 outperform the exynos 990
+2 Reply
Avatar
Lloyd July 5, 2021 at 01:53 AM
Qarta, Ok. So what?
+12 Reply
Avatar
MrNiceGuy August 7, 2021 at 10:05 PM
Lloyd, Looking at the 2020 flagship SOCs, Exynos 990 is definitively on the bottom of that list. For the price of a 2020 flagship phone with an Exynos 990 SOC, it is indeed in comparison with the other options trash. The value is trash.
+6 Reply
Avatar
Lloyd September 8, 2021 at 07:45 PM
MrNiceGuy, Yes, from that perspective you're right. But it does not mean the SoC itself "trash" for this or any other reason. Despite its price would not worth, it's better than most of the SoCs except flagship ones. It performs acceptably.
+43 Reply
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