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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom of Tech Chap and I'm back!
00:02I haven't made one of these videos in a couple of years I guess since the S22 series,
00:07but I am back and so is Exynos.
00:10Because here in the UK and Europe and I think pretty much everywhere outside of the US,
00:14the regular S24 and the S24 Plus use the Exynos 2400, but the Ultra gets the Snapdragon 8
00:20Gen 3 globally everywhere.
00:22However, in the US, all S24 models use the Snapdragon.
00:26And the problem is, historically, the Exynos chip just hasn't been as good as the Snapdragon.
00:32It did get pretty close, but generally it's been slower, worse for battery life, worse
00:36for the camera, and we just had to live with it because of, I don't know, money and patents
00:40and Qualcomm and Samsung deals.
00:42Now unlike previous years where I'd be comparing an Ultra with an Ultra but with different
00:46chips, obviously these are different models in the lineup.
00:49This is like £250 more expensive, £1250 vs £999.
00:53So this does have a better camera system and it has a slightly bigger battery and also
00:57a bigger vapour chamber cooler.
00:58So there are some differences, but apart from that, Samsung tell me performance should be
01:03comparable and that the different chips shouldn't have any effect on the new AI features.
01:07Everything is available on both.
01:09So let's see.
01:10And to be clear, both of these are retail models.
01:12They have the latest software as of, well, this date as I'm filming.
01:15So let's jump straight in with the 3DMark Wildlife Xtreme stress test.
01:19This is a 20 minute, very intensive, graphically demanding benchmark and by the end of it we'll
01:24see a high score, a low score, and also a stability rating because obviously throttling
01:28is a big question as well.
01:29How is the sustained performance?
01:31And the results?
01:32A little bit disappointing actually for the Exynos.
01:35We're looking at about a 20% higher peak score and a 15%-ish higher low score, although
01:41actually identical stability ratings.
01:43And scrolling down, the Plus used 12% of its battery vs 10% on the Ultra, although it does
01:49have a slightly bigger battery.
01:50Similar temperatures overall, but look at that peak FPS with the frame rate, 37 vs 32.
01:58But both these chips also claim to be much faster at ray tracing graphics, although there's
02:02really only a handful of games that support ray tracing and even then, like, War Thunder
02:06doesn't actually make that much difference, but you know, going forward, it's worth knowing.
02:10And after the Solar Bay stress test, again another 20 minute, very demanding test, the
02:14results are actually much closer.
02:16The S24 Ultra does still come out in front for both the best and the lowest score, and
02:21also just a little bit higher in terms of stability, so this is a bit more reassuring
02:24that actually there isn't a lot between them.
02:26But again, 2 out of 2 so far, the Snapdragon version is taking the lead.
02:30Just quickly though, if I go into the Geekbench device menu settings thing here, you can see
02:35that the Snapdragon is actually an 8-core chip, whereas the Exynos is a 10-core chip,
02:39although the architecture and the design are quite different.
02:41And also both these phones have 12 gigs of RAM and 256 storage.
02:45And we're looking at, I'd say, within the margin of error, or like, you know, no more
02:48than 1 or 2% difference in a single core, and about 4% faster in multi-core, so not
02:52much in it there, but 3 for 3, Snapdragon's winning.
02:56That is until we run the OpenCL test, which is a graphics test within Geekbench, and here,
03:01for the first time, we have an Exynos victory, 16,000 versus 15,000.
03:05Okay, last synthetic benchmark before we move on to some more real-world tests.
03:09And if I fire up Antutu, and then fast forward because this will take forever and I don't
03:13want to bore you all to death, the results, Snapdragon wins again, 1.82 million versus
03:181.73.
03:21But unless you're a tech nerd making videos like this, chances are you're not spending
03:24a whole lot of your time benchmarking your phone.
03:26So what about a more real-world performance test?
03:29Well, let's try a video export test, and if I fire up Premiere Rush, I've got a one-minute
03:334K60 video shot on each phone, and I'm just going to export it and see how long it takes.
03:38Got my little iPhone timer there, and actually right out of the gate, the Snapdragon on the
03:43Ultra does seem to be speeding up the export quite a bit faster.
03:48And jumping to the end, holy moly, that is a massive difference.
03:52It took nearly, no, over three times as long on the Exynos S24 Plus than the Snapdragon
03:58Ultra.
03:59That's really not good.
04:00I feel like maybe that's an anomaly.
04:02Let's just restart that.
04:03Yeah, it's taking the lead again.
04:05Looks like it's already three times faster.
04:08Actually, I want to pause that test there because for some reason, the S24 Plus is just
04:13slowed right down to a crawl.
04:16It's chugging.
04:17I can't remember the last time I've experienced a phone like this.
04:21Not sure what's going on with that.
04:22S24 Ultra's fine.
04:24I think we'll just have to restart the phone and hopefully it fixes it because I've not
04:28experienced that kind of slowdown before.
04:29Okay, fresh restart.
04:31The phones now appear to be as quick as each other in just day-to-day swiping and, you
04:35know, home stuff.
04:36That's fine.
04:37Let's jump back into Premiere Rush, see if there just was some performance issue there
04:40and actually it's closer.
04:42And the answer is no.
04:44In fact, it performs worse.
04:47I suspect this is just a Snapdragon optimization thing because the ubiquity of these Snapdragon
04:52chips, we've had them for years and they work very close with developers, is that they can
04:55be more optimized for it, whereas we have a few Exynos chips every now and then for
05:00a handful of phones.
05:01I mean, I know there's millions of them, but it's not nearly as universal as the Snapdragon
05:05chips.
05:06It could be improved with an update from either Samsung for the phone or Adobe for Premiere
05:11Rush, but at the moment, yeah, that's not good.
05:15Let's play a bit of War Thunder.
05:16I like this because it's a pretty demanding game, there's a ray tracing option and it
05:20tells me the FPS and immediately without ray tracing, but maxed out settings, both phones
05:26can comfortably hit that 120 FPS, although within a couple of minutes, I do find the
05:31frame rates drop a fair amount on both and actually the Exynos chip in the Plus does
05:38seem to be doing better, like a good 5 to 10 FPS better.
05:41Now if I turn on ray tracing, which honestly I wouldn't because it makes very little visual
05:45difference I have to say, and it does impact the frame rate.
05:48This is actually the first time we're seeing the Exynos chip come into its own.
05:51And interestingly, it was also the Solar Bay 3DMark test which incorporated ray tracing
05:55where we saw that first win for the Exynos chip as well.
05:58So in War Thunder at least, particularly if you are going to use ray tracing, I'm going
06:03to call this a win for the S24 Plus with the Exynos.
06:08However, if I flip them over and then grab my very disgusting but trusty laser thermometer,
06:14just in terms of the external surface temperature, we're looking at about a 3 degree higher temp
06:21on the Plus versus the Ultra.
06:23So in War Thunder, the Exynos wins.
06:26In PUBG, performance is similar, same graphics options as well so far.
06:30But obviously I can't test every game out there and there will be some differences,
06:33so it's going to depend on the game you play.
06:35But certainly they're both extremely powerful processors with very fast graphics.
06:40But what about all those AI features?
06:42That's like one of the big deals obviously with the new S24 range, is there a difference
06:45in AI?
06:46Obviously Snapdragon is going on about the MPU they have in the chip this year and how
06:50much faster it is.
06:51But then Samsung are also saying that the majority, if not all these features, will
06:54be going back to the S23 as well.
06:56So I'm not quite sure how that makes it an exclusive feature of these new phones and
07:01how the new chips unlock it.
07:03But either way, I have good news.
07:05Because every AI feature, at least the half a dozen or so that I've tested, from instant
07:09slo-mo and the AI photos and the gen fill and the transcribe and the summarize, all
07:15present and correct on both and performance seems to be neck and neck.
07:18So in terms of those AI features for both the camera and everything else, everything
07:22seems to run just fine, equally well on both chips.
07:25Which is good news.
07:26But the last thing I want to note is that the S24 Plus has used more battery.
07:34Like it's nearly 10 percentage points lower, which is a lot given that the S24 Plus has
07:39a 4,900 mAh battery versus 5,000.
07:43So where does that leave us?
07:44Well, it doesn't really leave you anywhere because you haven't got a choice.
07:47If you do not live in the US and you are buying yourself an S24 or a Plus, then you will have
07:51an Exynos chip, unless you smuggle in from the US, but then there may be different 5G
07:56bands.
07:57Probably wouldn't recommend it.
07:58I think overall, the Snapdragon is the slightly superior chip and also kind of makes sense
08:02from a marketing standpoint that they put that in the Ultra globally, whereas the Exynos
08:07is in the inferior Plus and regular S24.
08:11So that kind of makes sense, although a bit weird, especially in the US, how they get
08:14Snapdragon on all the phones.
08:16So I feel like a tiny bit shortchanged getting an Exynos here in the UK.
08:22I would still definitely consider buying the S24 Plus because it's like £250 cheaper.
08:27And while I'm not going to compare the cameras in this video because this has a 50 megapixel
08:30camera with a much smaller sensor than the Ultra's 200 megapixel camera, so that's never
08:36going to be the same.
08:37And on the one hand, it is impressive that Samsung with their Exynos chip have pretty
08:40much caught up to Snapdragon and this is like all they do.
08:43So, you know, the team at Exynos, the graphics in particular, good job, you're getting close.
08:48But what do you think?
08:49Is this a big deal?
08:50Could you care less?
08:52Let me know in the comments below.
08:53And also, if you do have an S24 or a Plus or an Ultra so far, let me know your experiences
08:57in the comments.
08:58Thank you so much for watching, guys.
08:59If you enjoyed this video, a like and subscribe would be fantastic and I'll see you next time
09:03right here on the Tech Jam.