We are less than a month away from the arrival of Qualcomm's next system-on-chip, which is expected to power many of the best Android phones next year. However, benchmarks of the yet-to-be-announced Snapdragon 898 are starting to leak, giving us a hint of what kind of performance we can expect.

The Snapdragon 898 comes at a time of increased competition for Qualcomm's silicon. Not only is Apple continuing to set the pace for smartphones with its A-series chips, but the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 13 model is the fastest chip we have tested. in the Pixel 6 benchmark, Tensor is Qualcomm's current leading chipset which was up against the Snapdragon 888, Qualcomm's current leading chipset. So all eyes are on the Snapdragon 898 (if that's what Qualcomm calls it), which will be available later this year.

Benchmark numbers leaked from Geekbench 5 tests are not exactly optimistic: as Wccftech discovered, results from the Galaxy Tab S8 tablet with the Snapdragon 898 are posted on test sites, and multi-core results lag behind current leading Android phones.

Specifically, the Galaxy Tab S8 with a chip matching the expected Snapdragon 898 specs had a single-core score of 1,211 and a multi-core result of 3,193. The former result is in line with our expectations for Qualcomm's upcoming chip, but the multicore numbers are a bit off and below some of the Snapdragon 888-powered devices we tested.

To give some background on the leaked numbers, the Samsung Galaxy S21 had a single-core score of 1,048 and a multi-core result of 3,302 when we tested it earlier this year. The OnePlus 9, also powered by the Snapdragon 888, had results of 1,126 and 3,618, respectively; as for the Pixel 6, it scored 1,029 and 2,696, both higher than the results posted on Geekbench, but Tensor's Geekbench scores were not on pace with Snapdragon-powered phones.

Before you hit the panic button, know that both the devices and processors tested are pre-release and likely not optimized for maximum performance. Last week, leaker Ice Universe said it expects final Geekbench numbers for the Snapdragon 898 of 1,200 in the single-core test and 3,600 in the multi-core test. These numbers are quite close to the 20% performance increase that Wcftech had reported in August.

These projected numbers may be an improvement over the Snapdragon 888-powered phone, but will not threaten Apple's A15 Bionic chip. in Geekbench 5, the iPhone 13 scored 1,684 in single-core and 4,129 in multi-core and 4,129 in multi-core, well above the Snapdragon 888's predictions and the Snapdragon 898's. The iPhone 13's graphics and real-world scores are also better than the Snapdragon 898's. In our graphics and real-world tests, the iPhone 13 outperforms the leading Android flagship models running on the Snapdragon 888.

We'll soon find out what Qualcomm has in store for next year's smartphones. The company will hold its annual Snapdragon Tech Summit on November 30. This is the event where Qualcomm typically shows off next year's top silicon.

The first phone likely to feature the Snapdragon 898 appears to be the Samsung Galaxy S22, which is expected to debut in February 2022. New rumors claim that the Snapdragon 898 will be featured in all S22 models, not just the model that will be released in the US