It has been a month since the launch by Huawei of one of its most anticipated terminals, the Huawei Honor 8X. The Smartphone enters the market strong thanks to its high-end bet (very close to the biggest exponents of the moment) but at an affordable price. Among the novelties of the mobile are the new COF packaging technology and a screen ratio that reaches 91%. But the novelty that brings us together today is nothing more than its processor, the new Kirin 710. While this shares the numbering with the Qualcomm processor, the Snapdragon 710, both have characteristics that differentiate each one. That’s why we wanted to face them in what we call HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710, and see if it is more important power or if the manufacturers can do wonders with the Software.

HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 – Which is better? Power or optimization?

HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 – CPU Comparison

Let’s start this HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 with a small look at the performance and composition of the CPUs of both SoC. The new participant, the Kirin 710, is designed with a 12nm process technology, a decision that can be considered strange when one considers that mobile processors with 7nm lithographs have already started to come out. This process translates into a greater integration of transistors, reducing the space required for a larger amount of them, in addition to improving performance and energy consumption.

The CPU architecture uses a total of 4 A-Cortex 73 cores with 2.2GHz speeds + 4 A-Cortex 53 cores with 1.7GHz frequencies, resulting in an Octa-Core processor. It seemed a lot to ask, but these numbers are on par with the Kirin 970, a processor that currently represents the best in the market.

On the other hand, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 is built with a lithography of 10nm, the same technology implemented in the Snapdragon 845. The CPU architecture is a little more disparate than that of the Kirin 710, having a distribution of two high-performance Kryo 360 Cores with 2.2GHz frequencies and six smaller Kryo 360 cores of 1.7GHz. In contrast, the Snapdragon 845 (the company’s flagship SoC) uses Kryo 380 cores.

Both SoCs approach the most powerful exponents on the market

In this first point of the HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710, you might think that only by the process technology implemented in the Snapdragon SoC, this is better, even just a little, but only with these numbers we cannot draw conclusions, so let’s continue analyzing other characteristics.

Also Read: Apple A12 Vs Hisilicon Kirin 980 Comparison – Clash of the First 7nm SoCs

HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 – GPU Comparison

We followed this HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 comparison with the GPU of both SoC’s. The Kirin 710 implements an ARM Mali G51. This graphics unit implements BiFrost architecture with support for Vulkan, OneCL 2.0 and OpenGL ES 3.2 interfaces. In this way, the GPU manages to be on par with the Mali G71, thus being like a high-end unit.

The Snapdragon 710 implements an Adreno 616 GPU. Thanks to it, the Snapdragon 710 is dominant in terms of high demand graphic processing, as we can see in the next sections.

HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 – Other Specs Comparison

Before entering the field tests, let’s finish reviewing the rest of the specifications of both chips. To begin, we have the Kirin 710 has upstream speed Cat.12 and downstream Cat.13, which allows fast LTE connections. However, in contrast, the Snapdragon 710 uses Cat.13 and Cat.15, which results in faster upload and download speeds than the chip used in the Honor 8X. It must be borne in mind that in order to fully use these technologies, our operator must have adequate support.

The compatibility of memories is identical between both SoC, being these LPDDR4X type and accepting UFS 2.1 flash memory.

HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 – Benchmarks Test

Continuing this HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710, we review the results of the most popular Benchmarks of Smartphones, these being AnTuTu, GeekBench, and GFXBench. These data tend to serve as a theoretical reference, which we will use to give us a previous idea of the real tests.

In the following graphs, the orange bars are the Snapdragon 710, while the blue bars represent the performance of the Kirin 710.

We can appreciate from the graphs that there is a small margin of difference between the overall performances in favor of the Snapdragon 710. However, this does not take into account the GPU optimization that has the Honor 8X, so the difference will not be seen until we are faced with a true graphics demand.

HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 – Games

For the next test, GameBench is used as a measuring tool, so that the performance of the processors can be monitored while executing two games with different demand levels. For this test, both phones had to be connected to the computer, so to avoid any variation caused by a change in temperature, Smartphones were recharged in advance. The rest of the conditions are identical for both participants, both lighting and connections.

The first test was conducted with a leading game in the field of Smartphones: Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds Mobile. This has been executed in HD quality, obtaining a maximum speed in both terminals of 30FPS.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 turns out to be more stable in the handling of the frames. This can be appreciated most when a vehicle is used within the game, where the Kirin 710 has a small change in its stability and performance. This, however, has resulted in very specific moments imperceptible during the test, which in the end ended up showing that both terminals had an average of 30FPS throughout the game.

Being in the moving vehicle, the SD 710 performed more stable than the Kirin 710

Now we go with a game a little less demanding, Arena of Valor. This was configured with all the environmental effects, multiple activated threads, and the highest possible fps limit. Although they may seem strange, these were the results.

In fact, the Snapdragon 710 has a different performance at the time of running the game, which is seen in the graph that constantly oscillates.

As if this were not enough, the result showed that the Snapdragon 710 only achieved an average of 58FPS, while the Kirin 710 remained stable at 60FPS. This indicates that the Snapdragon 710 manages better the demanding processes of the PUBG, but for higher yields with lower demands, the Kirin 710 manages to overcome it.

Winner: HiSilicon Kirin 710

Our Verdict

The result of this HiSilicon Kirin 710 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 seems a lie, but by a small margin, the Kirin 710 manages to position itself superior to the Snapdragon 710 despite having a process technology lower than the Qualcomm chip.

The logical answer to this performance is given that Huawei managed to optimize efficiently the Kirin 710 within the Honor 8X, exploiting the capabilities of the processor to the maximum. Both Hardware and Software must work hand in hand to achieve a balance, since, as has been demonstrated, both power and better technology do not always mean a better performance at the moment of truth.