How is the performance of Snapdragon 888? We played games for two days with Xiaomi Mi 11 | Hard Philosophy

The newly released Mi 11, with a starting price of 3999 yuan, is called the "2021 flagship goalkeeper" by many people; and as the first mobile phone equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 chip, it also gave us a glimpse in advance. The performance of mainstream Android flagships.

In the previous experience video , we have performed some benchmark tests on Xiaomi Mi 11. Take GeekBench 5 as an example. Although the multi-core performance improvement is not obvious, the addition of the new super-large core Cortex-X1 has greatly improved the single-core score of Snapdragon 888, breaking through from the original three-digit number to one thousand points. Mark.

At present, Qualcomm still has reservations about the performance of Snapdragon 888. After all, the main frequency of the X1 super core is still the same as the 865 A77, both at 2.84GHz, but in fact, on last year's Snapdragon 865+, we can already see a 3.1GHz overclocked core.

Maybe this year Qualcomm will also come up with an "overclocked version of Snapdragon 888" as the main dish in the second half of the year.

Compared with the CPU, the GPU has played a more important role in this round of Snapdragon Core iteration. Qualcomm claims that the new Adreno 660 will bring the biggest GPU performance upgrade in history, and in the Wild Life test item of 3D Mark, the increase has reached an astonishing 50%, and the data is very eye-catching.

Can this kind of graphics performance increase be perceived in our daily games? This time, we also selected several representative mobile games, tested them on Mi 11 and Mi 10, and used the PerfDog tool to record the results.

Let's take a look at how many changes Snapdragon 888 can bring to mobile games.

The first is the veteran national game "Glory of the King". We tested a single game of about 10 minutes in a 3v3 battle, and the picture quality and frame rate were all set to the highest level. Just looking at the curve during the game, the frame rate of Mi 10 and Mi 11 can be stabilized at 60 frames, and there is basically no frame drop.

However, when the two machines were running "Honor of Kings", the CPU and GPU were not full, and the final average power consumption was stable at about 2.8W. The truth is that it is difficult for "King of Glory" to put pressure on the flagship phones of the Snapdragon 8 series. Even in the most stressful 5v5 ranking team battles, the flagship phones rarely experience lag.

The situation in the subsequent "Peace Elite" is similar. We chose Ultra HD image quality + ultra high frame (locked 40 frames) + anti-aliasing special effects. The game time is 12 minutes. Both Xiaomi 10 and Xiaomi 11 have no significant frame drop, and the frame rate curve is highly consistent.

But when running to eat chicken, the average power consumption of Mi 11 has risen to 3.8W, while Mi 10 is 3.2W.

Next is the third "Call of Duty". Both Xiaomi Mi 10 and Mi 11 can turn on high-definition picture quality + 60 super high frames. Other special effects such as depth of field, anti-aliasing, and glow are all manually turned on. The test duration is In 20 minutes, a total of 4 multiplayer matches were played.

Let me talk about the frame rate first. On the surface, both Xiaomi Mi 10 and Xiaomi Mi 11 can maintain the level of 55-60 frames, but as time gets longer, Xiaomi Mi 11 is obviously better.

It can be seen that in the first two games, Xiaomi 10 and Xiaomi 11 have no obvious frame drop points throughout the entire process, and the overall frame rate can be controlled within the range of 59-60.

What really opened the gap was the next two games. From the third game, Xiaomi Mi 10 has a slight frame drop, the lowest will drop from 60 frames to 51-52 frames, but it is only a momentary frame rate fluctuation, and it will soon return to 60 full frames, so the actual game There will be no obvious perception.

On Xiaomi 11, the last two games are still at 60 frames full frame state, and there is no frame drop point at all, which also reflects the advantages of Snapdragon 888.

We also checked the CPU scheduling status of Mi 10 and Mi 11 in the last two games. It can be seen that the utilization rate of Snapdragon 888's large and medium cores will be more concentrated at this time, and the overall frequency is indeed higher, while the large core frequency of Snapdragon 865 fluctuates greatly.

However, the two have one thing in common at this time, that is, the super-large core is basically not involved in the process and maintains a low occupancy and low frequency state throughout.

At the same time, better performance also brings higher power consumption. The average power consumption of Xiaomi Mi 11 for nearly 20 minutes of "Call of Duty" is about 4W, which is slightly higher than Xiaomi 10 (about 3W).

This difference in core scheduling actually appeared in previous "Peace Elite" games. As can be seen from the above figure, the medium and large cores of Xiaomi Mi 11 will occupy higher levels, and the scheduling will be more active, while the super-large cores are basically unchanged. On Mi 10, the super-large cores will frequently participate in the process and occasionally Undertaking the main output, the other cores occupy relatively low.

This also brings up a new question: If two machines run a game with higher quality requirements, will Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 865 open a bigger gap? What will happen to core scheduling and power consumption?

It is estimated that you have to find the answer in "Original God".

The results of our first test of "Original God" were not satisfactory. When the two machines are adjusted to the highest quality, 60 frames are turned on, and after 15 minutes of trial play in the area around the original Shenliyue Port, no matter Xiaomi 10 or Xiaomi 11, there is no way to stabilize at 60 frames, but at 30- Jumping back and forth between 60 frames.

This result was significantly lower than expected, and it also made me suspect that the game scene was not optimized well or other unknown problems. After that, we changed another area for the second test.

In the second round of testing, we chose to walk around the main city of the original god Inner Mongolia, and the frame rate of the image quality remained the same as the first time. The test duration was 10 minutes.

This time the performance of the two mobile phones was relatively normal. In the first 5 minutes, both machines fluctuated in the range of 50-60 frames. After 5 minutes, there was significant frame drop, and Mi 10 still had a frame in the 8-9 minute stage. A very obvious frame rate fluctuation.

What is certain now is that it is still difficult to run the original 60 frames of the original God with the highest picture quality on the mobile phone, and it will not drop frames for a long time. This is also the case when we tested the iPhone 12 before. When the temperature is up, frame drop is still inevitable. You can only rely on degrading the image quality or turning off special effects such as motion blur in exchange for a stable frame rate.

But is Snapdragon 888 really unable to hold the full special effects of 60 frames of "Original God"? There are other data to illustrate the problem.

Let's take a look at the core scheduling of Snapdragon 888. In the first two tests, we also said that the super-large core of Snapdragon 888 is not actively scheduled in the game, and more of it is relying on large and medium cores to bear pressure.

In low-load games such as "Peace Elite" and "Call of Duty", the super-large core does not move, and it is not a problem to rely solely on the large and medium cores for output, but in high-load games such as "Original God" , Without the participation of the super nuclear, it will indeed be a lot of effort.

In the second round of "Original God" testing, we also found that the Snapdragon 888 at this time is still relying on 3 large A78 cores and 4 A55 cores to maintain performance. At this time, several cores are maintained at High utilization rate of more than 50%.

But that X1 super core (orange line), the load is still very low, most of the entire test, it is occasionally cut in, and then quickly returned to the low frequency state.

Only at the end did it bid farewell to fishing and began to work hard. It was also during the last period that the frame rate of Xiaomi Mi 11 returned from violent fluctuations to the range of 60 frames.

Looking at the Snapdragon 865 of Xiaomi 10 again, the enthusiasm of the super-large core is obviously much higher, and it also shares a lot of load pressure. In contrast, the frequency of the other cores on the 865 is slightly lower than that of the 888.

It can be said that Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 865 use two completely different core scheduling strategies, but if you look at the fluency results of the actual game, there is actually no difference in frame rate performance.

In theory, if the super-large nuclear energy of Snapdragon 888 is more actively involved in the process, games with higher screen caps like "The Original God" can make the device run more smoothly.

But why does this super-large nuclear choose "strike"? The main reason should be power consumption.

It can also be seen in the tests of "Call of Duty" and "Peace Elite" that when running at full frame rate and full image quality, the power consumption of the 888 will be slightly higher than that of the 865, and this is already a super core The state of not participating in the process.

Now replaced by "Yuan Shen", the average power consumption of Mi 11 has been further increased to 6.2W and 6.5W, while Mi 10 is only 5.2W and 5.8W. If the super core is involved at this time, heat generation and power consumption It is estimated that it will not be ideal.

In order to control power consumption, the practice of limiting peak performance in the game can only be said to have both pros and cons. Considering that the X1 super core of Snapdragon 888 this time has very high peak performance, and the GPU frequency is not low, it is understandable that Xiaomi chose a conservative schedule in the early stage of listing.

But for gamers, a major purpose of buying a flagship machine is also to get a smoother experience. At present, the good performance of 888 can only be used in a few running software, but it does not significantly help the actual scenes such as games. It is indeed a pity.

In general, for daily use, just playing games with low and medium load such as Honor of Kings and Chicken Eater, the performance of Snapdragon 888 is still as expected, power consumption has not increased significantly, and the temperature control of Xiaomi Mi 11 is also doing well At present, the cooperation of large and medium nuclear power alone is sufficient to support mainstream games such as "Peace Elite" and "Call of Duty".

As for "The Original God", it is more of a reference example in a high-load scene, and there is indeed room for improvement. As for how to deploy the cores in the Snapdragon 888, improve performance while optimizing power consumption, it is what Xiaomi and Qualcomm need to solve afterwards.

Considering that Xiaomi 11 is still the only Snapdragon 888 phone on the market, this test is only for reference at the moment. In January, flagship machines from other manufacturers will be released one after another. We also hope to see better heat dissipation and scheduling solutions, so that users can enjoy the performance improvements in actual use.

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