Hello everyone and welcome to another post. There’s two new SoCs that I’d love for us to look at. These are the Exynos 1330 and Exynos 1380.

Samsung has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, first off was the GOS and benchmark cheating scandal, next up was the failures of their Exynos division and more recently their moon mode fiasco.

So I’m not very surprised that the release of their new SoCs weren’t received to a lot of fanfare. You may also attribute this to the fact that Samsung doesn’t really hype their midrange SoCs as much as they do their flagships.

We’ll start off by looking at the specs of both SoCs, talk about their similarities an difference and finally where we would most likely see them.

Exynos 1330

  • Big cores: 2 Cortex A78 (2.4GHz)
  • Small cores: 6 Cortex A55 (2GHz)
  • GPU: Mali G68 MP2
  • Fab: 5nm Samsung EUV
  • ISA: ARMv8
  • RAM: LPDDR4x, LPDDR5
  • Storage: UFS 2.2, UFS 3.1
  • ISP: Exynos Dual ISP
  • AI: APU
  • Camera: up to 108MP
  • Video: 4K @30fps
  • Modem: Samsung 5G modem
  • 4G LTE: Cat 18
  • 5G sub-6GHz: 1.2Gbps (up) 2.5Gbps (down)
  • WiFi 5
  • Bluetooth 5.2

It appears now that the standard for upper midrangers has moved from ARM Cortex A76 CPUs to ARM Cortex A78. What this brings with it is a massive increase in CPU power.

Performance

Look at it like this, the Snapdragon 855 used 4 ARM Cortex A76 CPUs inorder to hit a Geek Bench score of 2600 (Multi). The Exynos 1330 with just two A78 cores comfortably touches 2500. You don’t have to take my word for it, feel free to do the research.

The Snapdragon 855 was the flagship for 2019 which is not that long ago. That time it was the pinnacle of smartphone computing. Now a Midranger with two less big cores could very well take it to the cleaners very easily. How times change…(sighs wistfully).

In terms of performance, you’ll find the Exynos 1330 somewhere between the Snapdragon 768G and the Dimensity 820. This SoC is right there at top of the upper midrange segment. At the very top so you know fully well that it’s not coming cheap.

It’s built on a 5nm Samsung EUV process so battery consumption and heating should be at an acceptable level.

The GPU on board is a decent Mali G68 MP2. It should be decent for most games around but I feel that the GPU doesn’t really match the CPU power on offer here.

Multimedia

For memory and storage, there’s LPDDR4x and LPDDR5 RAM support as well as UFS 2.1 and 3.1. The cameras max out at 108MP support and it can encode up 4K video at 30fps. These are all standard upper midrange specifications.

Network

The network connectivity is where this SoC really shines. It’s 4G LTE (Cat 18) and 5G (Sub 6-GHz) connection speed are really fast and very good. There’s also WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.2 as well.

Next up, we have the Exynos 1380.

Exynos 1380

  • Big cores: 4 Cortex A78 (2.4GHz)
  • Small cores: 4 Cortex A55 (2GHz)
  • GPU: Mali G68 MP5
  • Fab: 5nm Samsung EUV
  • ISA: ARMv8
  • RAM: LPDDR5
  • Storage: UFS 3.1
  • ISP: Exynos Dual ISP
  • AI: APU
  • Camera: up to 200MP
  • Video: 4K @30fps
  • Modem: Samsung 5G modem
  • 4G LTE: Cat 18
  • 5G sub-6GHz: 1.2Gbps (up) 2.5Gbps (down)
  • 5G (mmWave): 0.9Gbps (up) 3.67Gbps (down)
  • WiFi 6
  • Bluetooth 5.2

If you gloss over the specs, you’ll think that the Exynos 1380 and Exynos 1330 are the same. But if you look closer, they are definitely not. The Exynos 1380 far outstrips the Exynos 1330 in 3 key areas.

The first is in performance (both CPU and GPU), the second is in the camera department and finally the last one is in the network department.

Performance

Looking at performance, the Exynos 1330 with 2 A78 CPU cores is powerful, so how powerful do you think that the 1380 is going to be with 4 A78s? The 1330 scores 415K on AnTuTu whilst the 1380 scores 507K. When it comes to performance, there’s no comparison.

The Mali G68 MP5 here is a B-class GPU that is very capable and goes a long way matching the CPU power on offer. The Exynos 1380 should rub shoulders with the likes of Snapdragon 855, Dimensity 1080 and Snapdragon 778G.

Multimedia

Just like the 1330, it’s also built on a 5nm Samsung EUV and support LPDDR5 and UFS 3.1. The cameras on here reach up to 200MP support which is way better than what you’d find on the other 1330 but then again, the sensor and the software used matters a lot too. The video is also a maximum of 4K @ 30fps.

Network

The network connectivity between the Exynos 1330 and Exynos 1380 is also the same except for two key differences.

The first one is that the 1380 supports mmWave 5G and it has the newer WiFi 6E standard. All of these are fairly inconsequential especially if you live in a 3rd world country but I feel like I should say them.

The 1380 from all indications is an upgraded version of the 1330. You’ll find the 1330 on the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G and the 1380 on the Samsung Galaxy A54 which we’ll look at later.

These SoCs are rather very good. It seems as though Samsung’s failure with their flagship SoCs have forced them to pay good attention to the upper midrange.

The only issue I’ll forever have with them is their usually atrocious pricing.

Thank you for reading to the end. As always, ensure to check out our links for more information and…