Snapdragon 765G vs Snapdragon 865: How might the Pixel 5 stack up?

The Snapdragon 865 is Qualcomm’s premium smartphone application processor for 2020, but not every manufacturer is taking up Qualcomm’s latest and greatest this generation. Instead, the “super mid-tier” Snapdragon 765 and 765G are set to feature in a number of prominent handsets, including the LG Velvet and Google Pixel 5.

Although they’re targeting a more affordable price point, these phones are the flagship products for their respective manufacturers. This begs the questions, can they offer a high-end smartphone experience without a flagship-tier processor?

Read more: Google Pixel 5: Everything we know right now

Virtually all modern smartphone chips handle day-to-day tasks and apps just fine, so we’re not concerned about the general experience offered by the 765G. Instead, flagship processors support cutting-edge features like 8K video recording, improved machine learning and image processing capabilities, and the fastest frame rates for gamers. You do have to pay top dollar for all these bells and whistles. The Snapdragon 765G has its upsides though, including a lower price point and an integrated 5G modem for improved power efficiency. Those are key factors to consider in the move to more power-hungry and complex 5G handsets.

There’s a delicate balancing act at play to provide the best all-round 5G smartphone experience. Let’s dive into the specs for a closer look at Snapdragon 765G vs Snapdragon 865.

Editor’s note: For benchmarking, we used the Galaxy S20 Ultra (Snapdragon 865) and the ZTE Axon 11 (Snapdragon 765G), one of the first phones to hit the market with the mid-range 5G chip.

Snapdragon 765G vs Snapdragon 865 specs

Clearly, these two chips aren’t evenly matched across a number of performance areas. The Snapdragon 865’s newer Cortex-A77 CPU cores deliver clock speeds and higher peak performance. That said, the Snapdragon 765G and its Cortex-A76 based CPU cores are comparable to last year’s flagship Snapdragon 855. Although the 765G only has two large cores for demanding applications, so won’t be quite as fast a multi-threading. The 865 is definitely faster, but the 765 is no slouch.

It’s a similar situation with AI and DSP performance. The Snapdragon 765G is a long way behind the 865’s 15 TOPS of performance, but is quite comparable to last year’s 855. It boasts 5 TOPS versus last year’s 7.5 TOPS. Google may opt to augment this with its in-house Pixel Neural Core for more competitive machine learning capabilities. The Snapdragon 865 also has the lead with faster and newer LPDDR5 RAM, but again LPDRR4X is more than serviceable.

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These synthetic benchmarks place the Snapdragon 765G right where we’d expect. It’s certainly not as fast as current-gen flagship chips but puts in a good performance against the Snapdragon 845 that powered 2018’s flagships. The updated Cortex-A76 CPU gives the 765G an edge in single-core results, but with just two of them means it’s a little behind in multi-core. A system-wide benchmark, via AnTuTu, again hints that performance will fall somewhere between the Snapdragon 855 and 845. That’s pretty good. The GPU results fall in line with the branding numbers, putting the 765G’s Adreno 620 below the 845’s Adreno 630 but notable ahead of the 730G’s Adreno 618.

The Snapdragon 865 is a much faster processor, but we knew that already.

We also ran the Snapdragon 765G through our Speed Test G suite, to simulate some real app swapping use cases. The results for Qualcomm’s mid-range chips look much better here than in the legacy benchmarks.

Here the Snapdragon 765G outperforms the older flagship-tier Snapdragon 845 in both CPU and GPU tasks. In fact, it’s not far behind the current-gen Samsung Exynos 990 and last-gen Snapdragon 855. This suggests that the Snapdragon 765G punches above its weight in real work scenarios and that more modern optimizations and higher frequencies in the Adreno 620 GPU may lend to some tangible advantages in real-world game engines. The Google Pixel 5 won’t be a high-end gamer’s phone, but it has the chops to handle modern titles at decent frame rates.

Overall, the Snapdragon 765G falls somewhere between the Snapdragon 845 and 855 in terms of performance and features. We’ll have to see how the Pixel 5 performs specifically before drawing final conclusions, but even around the 845 would be a decent result. That’s a little dated, but we didn’t have any performance complaints about those older flagships. Bottom line is, there’s a performance trade-off but it’s not as huge or important as you might think.

There’s more to a chip than benchmarks

We were never expecting the Snapdragon 765G to match the 865’s peak performance, but there’s more to a chipset that raw power. It’s often the other features that a chip enables that result in more compelling user experiences.

For instance, both Snapdragon 765G and Snapdragon 865 are designed for 5G smartphones. While the X55 modem paired with the Snapdragon 865 offers the fastest speeds, both are comparable in terms of features. Both work with sub-6GHz and mmWave frequencies, and feature Dynamic Spectrum Sharing to use 4G LTE and 5G services at once. In fact, the integrated X52 modem in the Snapdragon 765G should be more power-efficient than the external X55, meaning longer 5G battery life.

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Unlike the standard 765, the Snapdragon 765G supports 120Hz displays at an FHD+ resolution. This could allow the Pixel 5 to keep the high refresh rate of its predecessor and might even be able to leave it on constantly if power draw is low enough. The Snapdragon 865 supports up to 144Hz at a QHD+ resolution, but we haven’t seen any phones offer that option out of the box due to the high power consumption.

Cameras are a cornerstone of modern smartphones and both chipsets support some common high-end features. Both SoCs are built using Qualcomm’s dual Computer Vision ISP (CV-ISP) technology, supporting object detection, multi-frame HDR and denoise, and real-time bokeh blur directly on the ISP with high power efficiency. Google’s Pixel 5 could certainly run its advanced image processing algorithms on this CV-ISP. The Snapdragon 865 supports these features with higher resolution sensors, up to 64MP versus 36MP, and allows for up to 8K video recording or 960fps 720p low motion. But megapixels aren’t everything. The 765G retains the bulk of the most important capabilities and can even take 192MP snapshots and shoot 4K video at 30fps.

The 765G shares key features, including 5G, Wi-Fi 6, computer vision image processing, and 120Hz display support.

The two chips share a variety of other key high-end features. The Snapdragon 765G is built on the same 7nm process, ensuring best-in-class power efficiency. The two chipsets also sport Quick Charge 4+, blazing-fast Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and aptX Adaptive audio capabilities. Although the 865 offers slightly newer Bluetooth 5.1 and aptX Voice as extras.

As expected, the Snapdragon 865 packs in Qualcomm’s latest and greatest features that you won’t find on 700 series chips. However, the Snapdragon 765G pinches a number of the key ones, including 5G capabilities, Wi-Fi 6, computer vision image processing, support for 120Hz displays, and Quick Charge 4+ compatibility. When it comes to covering the core high-end smartphone features, the 765G has us covered.

Snapdragon 765G is a solid choice for the Pixel 5

Those looking for the very best smartphone performance and features will certainly prefer Snapdragon 865-powered flagships over handsets powered by the Snapdragon 765G. However, the latter is a perfectly decent strategic choice for more affordable 5G handsets. The integrated 5G modem saves on costs and also power consumption. Performance is a couple of generations behind today’s best, but phones built on the 765G benefit from modern features, including Bluetooth 5.0, high-end image processing, and 120Hz displays.

The Snapdragon 765G is a sensible component to pick for devices, such as the Pixel 5, that are looking to undercut today’s expensive flagships like the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. Great smartphones start with the SoC, but they certainly don’t end with it. Ultimately it depends what manufacturers do with their software features, camera hardware, other design aspects. Not forgetting that Google has its own Pixel Neural Core technology that it will likely use to enhance Qualcomm’s machine learning and image processing capabilities.

The Snapdragon 765G certainly isn’t a replacement for the very best tech on the market. But it is a comprehensive, affordable chip that supports most of the latest high-end trends.