Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra to favor Exynos 2200 over Snapdragon 898 for extra graphics boost to tackle iPad Pro

Apple has been the market leader in the tablet segment over the past decade with its iPad line proving almost unstoppable. However, Samsung has been upping its tablet game in the past couple of years in particular, and it looks like it is stepping things up further by introducing a new range-topping Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra model. This will sit above the regular Galaxy Tab S8 and Galaxy Tab S8+ models.

To help take the fight to the Apple M1-powered iPad Pro models, a new tip posted on Korean forum Clien suggests Samsung will fit the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra with its forthcoming Exynos 2200 SoC. The aim is to help take the fight to the M1 chip, particularly on the graphics side -- the Exynos, as many will know, will be powered by AMD’s vaunted mobile RDNA2-based GPU. 

While early benchmarks show the Exynos 2200 overpowering the Apple 14 Bionic in GPU performance, the M1-powered iPad Pros feature twice the GPU cores of the A14 with 8 in total delivering 2.6 teraflops of processing power. This would suggest that unless Samsung increases the core clocks or makes a special variant of the Exynos 2200 with additional cores, it will still fall short of the Apple's iPad Pro range. 

Assuming the rumor is true, this would leave the Galaxy Tab S8 and Galaxy Tab S8+ to be fitted with the next-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 898. While early CPU benchmarks have surfaced showing the Snapdragon SoC lagging behind the Exynos 2200 in both the CPU and GPU performance, it will still represent flagship-level performance in the Android tablet segment in either late 2021 or early 2022, when they are expected to be launched.

Buy the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 Wi-Fi model with 128 GB of storage for just US$530, a saving of US$120.