Benchmarks of what appears to be a Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus have been leaked, revealing that Samsung's upcoming flagship phone is behind the iPhone 12 in terms of performance.

A Geekbench 5 listing discovered by SamMobile shows a phone with the model number SM-G996U with a Snapdragon 875 chipset (Qualcomm's next flagship chip), 8GB of RAM, Android 11 Android 11. This model number matches the model number SM-G986 of the Galaxy S20 Plus, so we can assume that the model shown in this benchmark is the Galaxy S21.

The Galaxy S21 with the Snapdragon 875 scored 1,120 in the single-core score and 3,319 in the multi-core test. These are decent numbers, but the iPhone 12 with the A14 Bionic produced a high single-core score of 1,593 and an excellent multi-core score of 3,859. However, we expected the Galaxy S21 to come much closer to the iPhone 12.

At least the Galaxy S21 shows a marked improvement over the Galaxy S20 Plus and its Snapdragon 865 chip: the Galaxy S21's Geekbench 5 single-core score was 811 and its multicore score was 3,076.

There are a couple of caveats here: first, the Snapdragon 875 has only just been officially announced by Qualcomm. This means that the chip could be more optimized. In addition, Samsung could push the chip further on the software and cooling aspects of the Galaxy S21.

The second caveat is that the phone has 8GB of RAM, and Samsung may offer at least one configuration of the Galaxy S21 with 12GB of RAM. That should result in a higher score.

These benchmarks also suggest another deflating story for Samsung phone fans. Usually, the U.S. versions of the Samsung S and Note series are equipped with the Snapdragon chip, but in the UK and Europe, they are forced to use devices with Samsung's Exynos chip.

Taken alone, Exynos processors are not bad. However, when compared to Qualcomm's chips, they are inferior in performance and power efficiency.

Therefore, if these Geekbench 5 results for the Snapdragon 875 are a bit disappointing given Samsung's track record so far, we can speculate that the Exynos chip in the UK version of the Galaxy S21 could be even less impressive.

A previously leaked Geekbench 5 of a Samsung Galaxy S21 with Exynos 2100 had a single-core score of 1,038 and a multi-core result of 3,080. In other words, the Exynos 2100 appears to be slower than the Snapdragon 875, at least when used on the Galaxy S21.

Nevertheless, previous rumors suggest that the Galaxy S21 will feature the Exynos 2100 (previously thought to be called Exynos 1000) chipset, built on a 5-nanometer process node, and leaked information suggests that the Snapdragon It is claimed to offer a 3x improvement over the 865. Graphics improvements should also be planned, as the Exynos 2100 may use a graphics accelerator built in partnership with AMD.

Therefore, if these rumors come to fruition, it may be more advantageous to purchase a Galaxy S21 with an Exynos chip than a Galaxy S21 with a Snapdragon chipset. Currently, there are only rumors and somewhat inconclusive leaked benchmarks.

The design is not expected to change significantly from the Galaxy S20. However, the Galaxy S21 Ultra may feature two telephoto cameras (one with 3x zoom and the other with 10x zoom). The Galaxy S21 Ultra may also feature an LTPO display panel that can dynamically change refresh rates to reduce battery consumption.

Time will tell which rumors are accurate. But with the Galaxy S21 expected to be announced as early as January 2021, our wait is not that long.