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Kirin 990 vs. Snapdragon 855 and 855 Plus

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What is Kirin 990 5G?

Kirin 990 5G is a 64-bit high-performance mobile ARM 5G SoC designed by HiSilicon, introduced on September 6th 2019, first appearing in the Huawei Mate 30 Pro. Fabricated on TSMC's enhanced 7nm+ EUV process, the 990 5G incorporates two high frequency Cortex-A76 cores operating at 2.86 GHz along with two medium frequency Cortex-A76 cores operating at 2.36 GHz along with four Cortex-A55 cores operating at up to 1.95 GHz.

The 5G model of the Kirin 990 is one of the first SoC that fully integrates a 5G modem (Balong 5000) in the same silicon as the CPU and the GPU. The Kirin 990 5G includes a limited version of the Balong 5000 modem that supports Sub-6-GHz frequency but no mmWave (commonly used in the USA).

There will be a Kirin 990 4G Version, including the Balong 765 with 4G LTE (3GPP Rel. 14) in the SoC.

The Kirin 990 5G supports up to 2.3 Gbps download and up to 1.25 Gbps upload speed and supports LPDDR4X-4266 memory.

What is Snapdragon 855?

Snapdragon 855 is a high-performance 64-bit ARM LTE system on a chip designed by Qualcomm and introduced in late 2018. Fabricated on TSMC 7nm process, the 855 features four Kryo 485 Silver high-efficiency cores operating at 1.8 GHz along with three high-performance Kryo 485 Gold operating at 2.42 GHz and another higher-performance Kryo 485 Gold core operating at 2.84 GHz. The Snapdragon 855 integrates the Adreno 640 GPU operation at 600 MHz and features an X24 LTE modem supporting Cat 20 uplink and Cat 20 downlink. This chip supports up to 16 GiB of quad-channel LPDDR4X-4266 memory.

The Snapdragon 855 can be paired with Qualcomm's X50 5G modem (an external chip) and an RF front-end interface chip (RFFE) to bring 5G NR, sub-6 GHz and mmWave, support.

The 855 Plus is an identical, but higher clocked version of this processor.

Snapdragon 855 and Snapdragon 855 Plus vs Kirin 990: Specs

Before we dive into some benchmark numbers, let's recap the key specifications of these high-end SoCs. The Kirin 990 stands out as the first flagship chipset boasting an integrated 5G modem, although Huawei makes a 4G-only model too that features some slightly lower CPU clocks.

All four of the chips here boast eight CPU cores. However, the configurations are slightly different. Huawei opts for a 2+2+4 big, middle, and small setup, which offers two big cores for more demanding applications. Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 855 and 855 Plus opt for a 1+3+4 design based on the hypothesis that demanding apps mostly only require one very high-performance CPU thread. One of the main differences between the Snapdragon 855 and 855 Plus is that this single big "Prime" core sees a clock speed boost to 2.96GHz, the highest clock on offer here.

Model	Kirin 990 (5G)	Kirin 990 (4G)	Snapdragon 855 Plus	Snapdragon 855
CPU	2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.86GHz 2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.36GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.95GHz	2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.86GHz 2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.09GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 1.86GHz	1x Kryo 485 Gold (A76) @ 2.96GHz 3x Kryo 485 Gold (A76) @ 2.42GHz 4x Kryo 485 Silver (A55) @ 1.80GHz	1x Kryo 485 Gold (A76) @ 2.84GHz 3x Kryo 485 Gold (A76) @ 2.42GHz 4x Kryo 485 Silver (A55) @ 1.80GHz
GPU	Mali-G76 MP16 @ 600MHz	Mali-G76 MP16 @ 600MHz	Adreno 640 @ 672MHz (estimated)	GAdreno 640 @ 585MHz
RAM	4x 16-bit channels @ 2133 MHz LPDDR4X 34.1GB/s	4x 16-bit channels @ 2133 MHz LPDDR4X 34.1GB/s	4x 16-bit channels @ 2133MHz LPDDR4x 34.1GB/s	4x 16-bit channels @ 2133MHz LPDDR4x 34.1GB/s
Storage	UFS 3.0	UFS 3.0	UFS 3.0	UFS 3.0
Modem	4G / 5G (integrated) 2300 Mb/s download 1250 Mb/s upload	4G LTE 1600 Mb/s download	Snapdragon X24 LTE 2000Mbps download 316Mbps upload	Snapdragon X24 LTE 2000Mbps download 316Mbps upload
Process	7nm FinFET+ EUV	7nm FinFET	7nm FinFET	7nm FinFET