Exynos 7904 vs Snapdragon 636 Comparison – That was Close!

In India, if any company wants to conquer the smartphone market, then it has first conquer the budget segment. Xiaomi understood this, and that’s the main reason why the company focused only on the budget and mid-range phones instead of launching high-end flagships. Even Samsung is now focused to compete with the likes of Xiaomi and Honor in the budget segment as the all-new Galaxy M10, and M20 are really good value for money phones from Samsung.

In the sub Rs 15,000 price segment, one of the most popular processors is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 636. It all started when Xiaomi launched the Redmi Note 5 Pro last year as the first smartphone with this processor. It is a huge upgrade from 2017’s Snapdragon 625, and we have seen this processor in phones like the Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1, the Nokia 6.1 Plus, Motorola One Power, Redmi Note 5 Pro, Redmi Note 6 Pro, etc.

The Galaxy M20 with the Exynos 7904 comes with a starting price of Rs 10,990 and the price goes up to Rs 12,990. This is the price range where we also see the Snapdragon 636-powered Max Pro M1, Note 5 Pro, and the Note 6 Pro. So, how does the Exynos 7904 from Samsung compares to the Snapdragon 636? Well, in this article, let’s compare the Exynos 7904 vs Snapdragon 636.

In our previous comparison, we saw how the Exynos 7904 is still not at the level of Snapdragon 660. So, it does make sense to compare it to the Snapdragon 636.

EXYNOS 7904 VS SNAPDRAGON 636 – THE SPECIFICATIONS

If you have read our previous article where we compared the Exynos 7904 vs Snapdragon 660, then you will notice that the specifications of the Snapdragon 636 aren’t much different. This is actually due to the fact that the Snapdragon 636 has the same CPU architecture and other stuff and the difference lies in the clock speed and the GPU.

Same is the case with the Exynos 7904. It is not a huge upgrade from the Exynos 7885 since both have the same CPU architecture, same GPU and they differ only in a few aspects.

THE CPU

Let’s start with the heart of an SoC, the CPU. The Snapdragon 636 has the same Kryo 260 CPU as the Snapdragon 660. So, there are four semi-custom high-performance Cortex-A73 cores and four semi-custom power-efficient Cortex-A53 cores. The only difference is that the CPU has a clocked speed up to 1.8GHz compared to Snapdragon 660’s 2.2GHz.

On the other hand, the Exynos 7904 from Samsung has two high-performance Cortex-A73 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and six power-efficient Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.6GHz. So, just looking at the cores and the arrangement, the Snapdragon 636 has a slight edge since there are more high-performance cores despite the fact that the clock speed is the same.

WINNER – SNAPDRAGON 636

THE GPU 

One of the things due to which the Snapdragon 636 differs from the 660 is the GPU. The Snapdragon 636 has an Adreno 509 GPU compared to Adreno 512 on 660. The Adreno 509 is a 14nm GPU with a clock frequency of around 720MHz. On the other hands, the Mali-G71 MP2 GPU of the Exynos 7904 is a pretty old GPU introduced in 2016 based on the 16nm architecture. Still, the GPU has a clock frequency of around 770MHz. So, the performance of both the GPUs are pretty comparable since one has a better architecture while the other has a higher frequency.

WINNER – IT’S A TIE

CAMERA SUPPORT

One of the reasons why Samsung launched the Exynos 7904 is the triple camera support on the rear. This is the only processor right now in this price range that supports up to triple rear cameras. On the other hands, the Snapdragon 636 supports only up to dual rear cameras.

Also, the Exynos 7904 supports up to 32MP single rear camera whereas the Snapdragon 636 supports up to a 24MP single camera. Both the processors support 4K 30fps videos.

WINNER – EXYNOS 7904

CONNECTIVITY

Finally, talking about the connectivity options, both the Exynos 7904 and the Snapdragon 636 support LTE Cat.12 and LTE Cat.13 for uplink and downlink respectively. So, there is no major difference regarding the connectivity options.

WINNER – IT’S A TIE

EXYNOS 7904 VS SNAPDRAGON 636 – THE BENCHMARKS

Now, let’s talk about the benchmark scores. The Exynos 7904 scores around 107K on AnTuTu benchmark as shown in the image above. On the Geekbench benchmark, the single core score is 1314 while the multi-core score is 3982. So, it is a pretty respectable score for a processor at this price.

And finally, on Slingshot Extreme, the Exynos 7904 scores 580 for the Open GL ES 3.1 and 1101 for the Vulkan.

Now, coming to the scores of the Snapdragon 636 processor, the AnTuTu score is around 113-114K. So, the score isn’t much different than that of Exynos 7904.

On Geekbench, the single core score of the Snapdragon 636 is around 1,328 while the multi-core score is 4,860. So, as you can see in the images above, the Exynos 7904 has a similar single-core score, but when it comes to the multi-core score, the Snapdragon 636 takes a big lead, thanks to those extra high-performance cores.

EXYNOS 7904 VS SNAPDRAGON 636 – CONCLUSION

Well, we saw in the previous comparison of Exynos 7904 and the Snapdragon 660 that the 660 takes a big lead in every aspect. But when it comes to the comparison between the Exynos 7904 vs Snapdragon 636, the 7904 is very comparable to the Snapdragon 636. Just a better GPU and better cores arrangement would’ve made the Exynos 7904 sit between the Snapdragon 636 and 660 but still, considering the starting price of Rs 10,990 for the Galaxy M20, we think this is a great processor that Samsung has offered.

What do you think of this comparison between the Exynos 7904 and the Snapdragon 636? Do let us know via the comments section.

MORE COMPARISONS –

• Exynos 7904 vs Snapdragon 660 Comparison – One Sided Battle?
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• Kirin 710 vs Snapdragon 636 – Comparison of the mid-range chips
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