Samsung Galaxy S21 benchmark leak says it'll be much, much better than first thought

We’re expecting Samsung to use two different chipsets in the Samsung Galaxy S21 range, with the US likely getting the Snapdragon 888, while the UK and many other regions will probably get the Exynos 2100. And while early benchmarks suggested there might be a gulf in performance between the two chipsets, there’s now hope that they might be similar.

A new Geekbench 5 result shared by @UniverseIce (a leaker with a decent track record) shows scores for a phone running the Exynos 2100. The name of the phone isn’t listed but the model number is SM-G996B, which has previously been linked to the Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus.

In any case, it records a single-core result of 1,089 and a multi-core score of 3,963. For comparison, a pair of previous Exynos 2100 benchmarks showed results of 1,006 / 3,059 and 1,038 / 3,060 for single-core and multi-core respectively.

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Yes #Exynos_is_back ！ pic.twitter.com/xH2F8LgllMDecember 22, 2020

So the new result only has a marginally higher single-core score, but the multi-core score dwarfs those earlier benchmarks.

In fact, it even has the Snapdragon 888 beat – Qualcomm itself (the maker of Snapdragon chipsets) shared a 3,794 multi-core score for that, while in an early Snapdragon 888-based Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus benchmark we saw a multi-core score of 3,319. Though the single-core result of 1,120 in that benchmark is still slightly higher than the Exynos.

Based on this latest benchmark then, the Exynos 2100 should offer similar performance to the Snapdragon 888, if not slightly better, which is great news for anyone worried about being stuck with a lesser version of the Samsung Galaxy S21.

Of course, we’d still take this latest result with a pinch of salt, especially as it’s at odds with earlier ones. But we should have a very good idea of how well the Galaxy S21 performs soon, as the range is rumored to be landing on January 14.