Qualcomm development tablet and smartphone | Image Credit: AnandTech

After seeing several unofficial Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 benchmark results that suggested the new flagship System on Chip from Qualcomm would blow the competition out of the water, we now have official tests showing the same thing.

Various publications including AnandTech and Engadget have been invited to check out the new SoC (Snapdragon 800 MSM8974) on a Qualcomm development tablet and smartphone, and the results are very interesting – and in line with what you expect.

In short, the Snapdragon 800 – which is said to power various upcoming flagship Android handsets including the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the HTC One Max (T6), the Sony Xperia Z Ultra (ZU or Togari), the Samsung Galaxy S4 LTE Advanced version and the LG Optimus G2, to name just a few – is able to deliver a remarkable performance, particularly in the GPU department.

Image Credit: ArsTechnica

Several benchmarks have been used to gauge its potential, and the Snapdragon 800 SoC has been pitted in an Engadget test against several worthy competitors including the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 found aboard the HTC One and the Galaxy S4, the Exynos 5 Octa that powers certain Galaxy S4 versions, the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro in the HTC Droid DNA, the Qualcomm Snapdragon S400 in the HTC First, the Exynos 4 Quad in the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 but also the NVIDIA Tegra 4 SoC in a reference device.

AnandTech compared the Snapdragon 800 against some of the SoC mentioned above, but also against SoCs in the iPhone 5 and iPad 4, and, finally, the publication compared the Snapdragon 800’s GPU against several PC GPUs.

Image Credit: ArsTechnica

The hardware

The hardware used to test the new Qualcomm flagship SoC is certainly interesting, so here’s what the company offered the publications:

Tablet:

• 11.6-inch display with 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 2.3GHz MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 processor (4 Krait 400 CPUs)
• Adreno 330 GPU clocked at 450MHz
• 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM at 800MHz
• 32GB flash storage
• microSD support
• USB 3.0 support
• microHDMI support
• 3.5mm headset jack
• 12-megapixel camera with auto-focus and flash
• 2-megapixel front-faing camera
• 3400mAh battery
• LTE
• Wi-Fi ac support
• Bluetooth 4.0 LE
• GPS
• NFC
• 11.7mm thickness

Phone

• 4.3-inch display with 720p resolution
• 1500 mAh battery
• most of the other features similar with the test tablet.

The results

As you’ll notice in the following gallery of benchmark screenshots, the Snapdragon 800 did more than well whether we’re talking about the phone and tablet. Testing them both, Engadget found them to offer “ludicrous speed,” with only the Tegra 4 SoC capable of putting up a decent fight.

The more thorough results come from AnandTech, which focused mainly on testing the performance of the tablet offered for demo. While the CPU of the Snapdragon 800 was not able to outclass the competitors in all tests, the GPU was found to offer impressive performance, outscoring its main rival in the process. The site concluded that the Snapdragon 800 CPU is more than a match for ARM Cortex 15 and Intel Bay Trail, while the GPU is the “new king,” with Adreno 330 becoming the GPU to beat this year. The SoC fared well against PCs too in a GPU comparison, although the performance, as expected, is not quite there yet.

In the gallery below, you’ll see various benchmark results as performed by AnandTech:

ArsTechnica compared available benchmarks with previous results for other gadgets, and its graphs show that the Snapdragon 800 GPU is “even quicker than Tegra 4 or the iPad 4.”

That said, we’re very interested to see the first Snapdragon 800-based devices hit stores, and we’re particularly looking forward to see what new tablets will be powered by the new processor, as so far we only have rumors about future smartphones that will use the flagship SoC.