Apple A17 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 - A True Heavyweight Clash

Apple has dropped the gauntlet for the next 12 months by announcing the Apple A17 Pro. It is now up to the competitors to step in. Whilst we are waiting for their announcements, let's have Qualcomm’s best go up against Apple’s best. The Apple A17 Pro vs. Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.

The Apple A17 Pro is Apple’s current flagship and it is also the fastest SoC in the smartphone space with a clock speed of 3.78GHz. This SoC can be found on the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the older of the two as it was announced in November of 2022. It is Qualcomm’s current flagship SoC and it enjoys a lot of patronage from Android smartphone makers.

It powers high-end smartphones like the Xiaomi 13, Xiaomi 13 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, Nubia Z50s Pro, One Plus 11, Nubia Red Magic 8S Pro, Nubia Red Magic 8 Pro, Honor Magic 5 Pro, Motorola Edge+ 2023, Vivo iQOO 11S, Oppo Find X6 Pro and several others.

With that being said, let us head into the review proper.

>> See: Apple A17 Pro vs. Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 - full specs comparison

Performance of the Apple A17 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

Comparing Apple SoCs to SoCs from the Android side of the great divide is always a tricky endeavor. This is because they are built differently and use different operating systems. However, benchmark tools are there to help us make sense of everything.

Benchmarks are tests that mimic real-world performance and give us an idea of how an SoC should perform in real-world use. On AnTuTu, the A17 Pro is slightly better (by 3%) than the 8 Gen 2. When we move over to Geek Bench, the story remains the same. The A17 Pro is much better (by 40%) and faster than the 8 Gen 2. There is no doubt that the A17 Pro is better, the only question is by how much.

Gaming of the Apple A17 Pro vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 2

When it comes to gaming, the almost-year-old 8 Gen 2 is better than the A17 Pro. This is surprising because Apple made a lot of noise about the new Apple GPU (6-core). Now it is important to note that the A17 Pro does better than the 8 Gen 2 at ray-tracing. But overall, the Adreno 740 on the 8 Gen 2 is at least 24% better than the A17 Pro (source 3DMark Wild LIfe Performance).

RAM and Storage

In the RAM department, the 8 Gen 2 uses a much faster and better LPDDR5X RAM (4200MHz). This is better than the LPDDR5 (3200MHz) on the Apple A17 Pro. For storage, the 8 Gen 2 supports UFS 4.0 whilst the A17 Pro sticks with Apple’s NVMe.

Cameras and Video

While it is not entirely clear the maximum camera resolution that the A17 Pro supports, we can tentatively say that it is 48MP. The 8 Gen 2 on the other hand supports a max camera resolution of 200MP.

In video, the A17 Pro does a max of 4K HDR video at 60fps. Even though the 8 Gen 2 can do 8K video at 30fps, the 4K HDR video on the A17 Pro is better.

Android flagships have caught up and dare I say, overtaken Apple’s iPhones in photography. However, they still have a ways to go to catch up in terms of videography.

Connectivity

Both flagship SoCs support 5G, 4G, 3G, and 2G networks. They also both support Bluetooth 5.3 but the 8 Gen 2 also supports a better WiFi 7 compared to the WiFi 6 on the A17 Pro. To cap things off, the 8 Gen 2 supports a much faster download speed (10,000Mbps) than the A17 Pro (7500Mbps).

Battery life

The Apple A17 Pro is built on a newer next 3nm TSMC process and thus should post a better battery efficiency/life and less heating than the 8 Gen 2. Although I need to say that it is not by much.

Conclusion

Apple’s flagship here wins performance, video, and battery life whilst the 8 Gen 2 takes gaming, photography, and connectivity. This is rather surprising because the A17 Pro is the next-gen SoC here and you would have expected it to take a clean sweep of this comparison. Props should also go to Qualcomm for narrowing the gap between themselves and Apple.

It will be interesting to see how well the upcoming  Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will perform against the A17 Pro.