Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus benchmarks just leaked — and iPhone 12 is laughing

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The S21 will have improved performance, but it's miles behind the iPhone

samsung galaxy s21
(Image credit: Snoreyn/Let's Go Digital)

With the Galaxy S21 expected to be unveiled next month, already leaks are hitting the internet of the phone's performance, and it pales in comparison to the iPhone 12.

The Galaxy S21 line is expected to ship in two different processor configurations. Generally, the U.S. gets Galaxy's with Snapdragon processors, while the rest of the world gets Samsung's Exynos. While Snapdragon 888 benchmarks have been on Geekbench before, many have been interested in what Samsung's new Exynos 2100 will be able to offer.

In single-core performance, the Exynos 2100 inside a Galaxy S21 Plus (SM-G996B) scored 1,040. In mutli-core, it scored 3,107. While these are major improvements when compared to past Snapdragon and Exynos processors, neither comes close to the iPhone 12 Pro. 

Exynos Benchmarks

(Image credit: Geenbench)

By comparison, the iPhone 12 Pro's A14 chip scored 1,585 and 3,926 in single-core and multi-core benchmarks, respectively. With single-core performance 500 points greater than the latest from Samsung, it means that an iPhone 12 will likely have greater speed than any equivalent Android. 

Curiously, it seems that the S21 Plus outperformed the S21 Ultra in tests. Both will use a slightly lower resolution display to help improve battery life, while the S21 will have 8GBs of RAM to the S21 Ultra's 12GBs.

As for users buying the Snapdragon 888 version of the S21 and S21 Plus, in single-core both phones scored 1,075 and 1,120, respectively. While in multi-core, both flagship phones scored 2,196 and 3,319. Based on these scores, those regions that get Snapdragon processors will have slightly better performance than Exynos. 

It should be noted that numbers aren't everything. Geekbench scores only paint one side of the picture. But we've the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 pro outscore Samsung phones on graphics tests and our real-world video transcoding tests, as you'll see in our iPhone 12 benchmark overview.

And we simply don't see the Galaxy S21 catching up to Apple. 

Imad Khan
Imad Khan

Imad is currently Senior Google and Internet Culture reporter for CNET, but until recently was News Editor at Tom's Guide. Hailing from Texas, Imad started his journalism career in 2013 and has amassed bylines with the New York Times, the Washington Post, ESPN, Wired and Men's Health Magazine, among others. Outside of work, you can find him sitting blankly in front of a Word document trying desperately to write the first pages of a new book.