It is now possible that Samsung's Galaxy S22 Ultra will be called the Galaxy S22 Note, but whatever the final name will be, it will likely have a different chipset in different regions - in some parts of the world it will be powered by the just announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, while other regions of the world will be powered by Samsung's own Exynos 2200.

While there won't be much of a decision on which chipset to get (especially in times of global chip shortages), it will still be interesting to see which performs better. And now that two listings of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 versions have appeared on Geekbench and seem to complement the Exynos 2200 we saw last month, we can see the full picture.

On the surface, and as in the past, Qualcomm seems to be the clear winner: the Samsung SM-S908U with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip and 8GB RAM had a single-core score of 1,219 and a multi-core score of 3,154. In contrast, the Exynos 2200 version, the SM-S908B, had a slightly better multi-core score of 3,167, but a much poorer single-core total of only 691.

While we're here, we also have a listing for the SM-S908N - which is the same as the other Qualcomm chips, but with 10GB RAM; the numbers 6,908 and 15,079 are not really comparable since they are Geekbench 4 scores.

Even ignoring these data points, it still feels like a slam dunk for Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, right? Probably so, but there are two important things to remember.

First, these are early benchmarks, before software has been optimized for both chips; given that the Exynos scores came out first, the numbers could go even higher.

Second, early rumors point to 3D rendering as Exynos' main strength, and even talk of console-style graphics and ray-tracing effects on mobile. Such things are not addressed in Geekbench, so even though the numbers are nearly identical, the battle between the two chips is only half over.

Apart from chip performance, the amount of RAM is something of a puzzle. Recent rumors suggest that the Samsung Galaxy S22 Note will have 12GB and 16GB of RAM, and certainly the 8GB and 10GB mentioned above would seem weak for Samsung's flagship. For reference, last year's S21 and S21 Plus had 8GB, while the S21 Ultra had 12/16GB.

We will have to wait and see what Samsung officially announces next year. Many leakers are favoring a February 2022 announcement and launch, so we won't have to wait too long.