So personally, I kind of feel like if you're
a company and you sell or manufacture a product
in different locations, those products should
either have the exact same parts, or at the
bare minimum, act the exact same...Right?
I feel like that's a pretty reasonable request.
Well, I know that Samsung is currently selling
their main flagship, the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra,
with different processors and different cooling
systems inside...in different areas of the
world. And today we're going to find out if
those two different versions act the same...or
not. We'll even take apart both phones and
spot the copper and graphite cooling systems
between them to see if that causes a difference
in performance as well.
On the left I have an international phone
which has the exynos processor and a copper
vapor chamber inside. And on the right I have
a white US phone with a qualcomm snapdragon
processor and a graphite cooling pad inside.
In my previous video I erroneously mentioned
that it was the exynos that was paired with
the graphite, but it turns out that Samsung
is using qualcomm chips in some markets outside
the US as well. So my phone actually had a
qualcomm chip inside. That error though actually
kind of makes this test all the more important
since it's not easy to know which version
of the phone you are actually buying. It's
time we find out if one build of the Note
20 Ultra is better than the other. It should
be pretty interesting. Let's get started.
[Intro]
There will be two variables that we're checking
on during this test: the processors and the
cooling. To start the test off I have both
phones charged up to 100% and both brand new
phones are on their very first charge cycle.
I've downloaded a benchmark app that stresses
the processor to see how much processing it
can handle and it gives the phone a score.
The higher the score, the better the performance.
You can see on the left we have the ARMv8
CPU, which is Samsung's own architecture for
the Exynos 990 system on chip. While the phone
on the right is using the qualcomm snapdragon
865 plus as its brain power. I'll hit run
at the same time on both phones and wait for
a few minutes while the phones do their thing.
The difference between the qualcomm and exynos
mobile system on chips is similar to the differences
we see between Intel and AMD computer processors.
Both are built to do the same job, but are
completely different products and perform
differently. We can already see that the US
based phone with its qualcomm chip and graphite
cooling finished first. A whole 15 seconds
faster than the exynos version. And finished
with a single core score that's 87 points
higher than the exynos. And a multi-core score
that is 456 points higher. That's a 16% power
difference between the two models. And also,
just for reference, my last year's Note 10
Plus scored a 2500 on the multiscore. I'll
show you that a little bit later in the video,
which means that the multi-core score performance
of the exynos chip is actually closer to last
year's Note 10 model than it is to this year's
Note 20 Ultra counterpart. Kind of embarrassing.
I'll keep track of the temperature throughout
this process as well. I did try monitoring
through the internal app and all of the temperatures
matched up between both devices pretty evenly.
Qualcomm did always run a few degrees cooler,
but that's not a huge difference as you'll
see throughout the video. I also measured
the temperatures externally as well throughout
the test. A hotter phone doesn't always necessarily
mean the processor itself is hotter. It could
just mean that the cooling system is actually
doing its job of pulling heat away from the
processor and pushing it to the outside of
the phone. The outside of the phone is warming
up more as a result of that exchange.
I performed this benchmark 8 times. I'll let
you see the results of each as they tick by.
Remember, we'll do this all over again once
I've switched out the cooling pads underneath
the motherboards just for kicks and giggles.
The performance difference between the qualcomm
and exynos is consistent, even as both phones
heat up. These benchmarks are kind of the
equivalent of playing an intense game for
about 30 minutes. Remember, this is just one
test. To get really accurate results I would
probably need to go buy a bunch of phones.
But since I've already got 3 of these $1300
flagships, I don't really want to buy anymore.
You might also have noticed that the screen
color is a bit different with both phones.
I'm pretty sure I have the brightness turned
all the way up on each. But it makes you wonder
if there are other components that don't match
between the variants as well. For the last
test I added a little fish tank aquarium LCD
sticker on the back of the phones. These stickers
heat up and tell what temperature the surface
is underneath the sticker. Then I started
up the last test and monitored each phone.
The processor is located in the upper half
of the phone and there was always about a
4 or 5 degree temperature difference between
the two – exynos being the hotter.
It turns out that the fish tank thermometers
don't work out all that well since both phones
blew right past that hottest temperature that
these stickers could record. Now we know that
if the Note 20 Ultra was a fish tank, we'd
have a lot of dead fish. So good thing it's
not a fish tank. I'm just going to take these
off and we'll forget about this part.
So after running the benchmark 8 times on
both phones, our battery percentage is at
84% on the exynos, and 86% on the qualcomm.
So one processor is performing better and
is more power efficient at the same time,
which is embarrassing yet again for the exynos.
Let's talk about the results from this first
round while I take apart the phones to pull
out that cooling system. After all, it's not
a Jerry Rig Everything video without a teardown.
In all 8 tests, the qualcomm variant of the
Note 20 Ultra crushed the exynos variant with
a nearly 16% performance difference every
single time. Remember, my last year's Note
10 Plus scored right about here, even after
I've been using it for about a year. So it's
almost more worth your time to skip the exynos
chip entirely and just get last year's phone
model if you're just worried about processor
performance. Sometimes apps only use one core,
and sometimes apps utilize all the cores.
So this benchmark is testing both multi-core
use as well as the single core use. And that
single core graph is down at the bottom.
Now that my mystic bronze international exynos
Note 20 Ultra is opened up, we can see that
it indeed does have the copper cooling vapor
chamber inside. I'll peel out that being careful
not to damage it since we are going to plop
it inside of the white US version of the phone
underneath the qualcomm processor. We can
see that it has a little wicking grid inside
to pull the moisture from one end of the vapor
chamber to the other. It's a pretty sophisticated
system. I'll open up the mystic white US qualcomm
variant of the Note 20 Ultra. And we can see
the graphite cooling system beneath that motherboard,
which is what we expected to find. We have
yet to see if one cooling system performs
better than the other. But by swapping them
and performing the load test one more time,
and comparing the numbers, we should get a
good idea of how much each cooling system
is helping out.
Now that I've inserted the copper cooling
system into the qualcomm phone, we can put
the graphite cooling system in with the exynos
processor, since the layout for the cooling
is exactly the same across both models. They
have the same size and footprint. Of course
now they don't have the factory seal anymore
with the frame of the phone, so it's not an
absolutely pristine example, but it's still
worth taking a look at.
I've got everything put back into place, connected
like little Legos, and screwed down. So we're
ready to start the benchmark test over again.
Remember, the international exynos phone is
on the left and now has the graphite cooling
system installed. And the US version is on
the right with its qualcomm and new copper
cooling system installed.
Running the 8 tests takes about 30 minutes,
which is plenty of time for the processors
to start heating up and start throttling a
little bit. This is also where I also put
my own 10 Plus into the mix and got its 2500
multi-core score. We'll let the rest of the
tests cycle through. I'm definitely not the
first person to point out the performance
differences between the exynos processors
and the qualcomm processors. Aaron, from Mr.
Who's the Boss, did an excellent video comparing
the S20 Ultra variants earlier this year and
got nearly the same results I did. It's kind
of hard to defend Samsung on this one. It's
as if Toyota was selling a 6 cylinder truck
in the USA, but a 4 cylinder truck everywhere
else without telling anyone what's under the
hood. I'm not the biggest fan. And this is
also why my Note 10 Plus is probably going
to be my last Samsung phone. It's time for
me to branch out after this one dies.
Now let's see if the cooling systems actually
made a difference in performance. Overall,
qualcomm still wins massively in the second
set of tests. The black line is qualcomm's
new benchmark. And the green line is the new
exynos benchmark. There is still about a 20%
difference in performance pretty much the
whole time throughout all the tests. The qualcomm
processor is clearly performing better.
But what about the cooling systems? When we
take a look at the original scores of the
US qualcomm model with its graphite cooling,
and then overlay the copper cooling scores
on top, we can see that the performance actually
decreased about 3% across the board this time
around. This is quite possibly just a factor
of the phone being taken apart and the cooling
system not being adhered like it was at the
factory. But it is still consistent all the
way through those eight tests. And if we take
a look at the exynos processor which started
out with the copper cooling, which is the
graph in red, and we overlay the new scores
with the graphite pad in green, we can see
they also have decreased about 3% across the
board – same as the qualcomm. Super interesting.
Judging by this set of tests and our rather
small sample size, it looks like the cooling
system between the two phones doesn't matter
very much since the scores were relatively
consistent across the board both times. And
then both phones dropped equal amounts when
I pulled out the cooling system and swapped
devices. It's also fun to note that the exynos
variant has 5% points less of battery now
than the qualcomm version does, even though
they've done the exact same things. There
are little differences all over the place.
In conclusion though, the biggest difference
between the two Note 20 Ultra variants isn't
the cooling system, it's mainly just the processor
itself and the difference between those two
processors is huge. Let me know what you think
of this whole exynos and qualcomm thing. Do
you think Samsung should be allowed to sell
an Ultra phone with different internals like
they are currently doing? I kind of think
they shouldn't. If it acts like a different
phone it should be called a different phone.
And when someone ends up with an exynos, they
are not getting the Ultra phone they paid
for. But let me know your thoughts down in
the comments. Come hang out with me on Instagram
and Twitter. And thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.
