The most anticipated rivalry between the A10 Fusion and Snapdragon 821 reached to another level. Both SoC processors are under the same ARM license, powering today's high-end mobile devices. But which one is a better chipset?
Note that their main difference is exclusivity. A10 Fusion chipset is from Apple and used on its iPhones and iPad devices. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 821, pretty much will be used in upcoming flagship Android mobile devices from companies like Samsung, HTC, and LG. Notably, the very first device running the latest Snapdragon 821 chip is Asus Zenfone 3 Deluxe.
Aside from exclusivity, both chipsets are from different manufacturers. The A10 Fusion is manufactured by TSMC exclusively for Apple, whereas the Snapdragon 821 is distributed and made by Qualcomm.
Albeit both have the same licenses from British company ARM, they sport contrasting features.
Development
The fact that the A10 Fusion chip is used by only one company, it gives an edge over its competition in the sense that it can be tailor-fitted to the best of its capabilities for superior application. Meaning, engineers can improve its efficiency according to its intended usage. Furthermore, features such as the energy efficiency, performance, and processing power can drastically be improved to further enhance mobile devices.
On the other hand, the Snapdragon 821 can be used on any Android device from whichever company chooses to incorporate it. Because of this, it has to sacrifice its optimum performance capability in lieu of usability features. Meaning, it has to be compatible across various mobile applications intended by different phone manufacturers.
Performance
Benchmark tests released by Techgrapple state that the A10 Fusion processor outperforms the Snapdragon 821. In terms of single-core performance, Apple's A10 Fusion wins impressively over the Snapdragon 821 at 3479 (iPhone 7 Plus) and 3457 (iPhone 7) vs a measly 1853, respectively. Multi-core tests also gives a win to Apple with 5708 (iPhone 7 Plus) and 5698 (iPhone 7) vs Qualcomm's 4380.
Geekbench test results also show that the A10 Fusion is around 33% faster than the Snapdragon 821 when running single-core applications. The former only fares by 7% better than the latter in terms of multi-core performances.
Conclusion
Even though the A10 Fusion processor overpowers the Snapdragon 821 on benchmark tests, there are still a lot of factors to consider on which one is a better chipset than the other. Overall performance of a phone also depends on its graphics processing unit and battery life amongst others.
In reality, these results are not that important to average users who know less about hardware and software. Which one is better still boils down to user-preference considering other factors more visible to the eye - aesthetics, form factor, and price.
