The Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge Review, Part 1
by Joshua Ho on March 8, 2016 9:00 AM ESTGPU Performance
On the GPU side of things, Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 is equipped with the Adreno 530 clocked at 624 MHz. In order to see how it performs, we ran it through our standard 2015 suite. In the future, we should be able to discuss how the Galaxy S7 performs in the context of our new benchmark suite as we test more devices on our new suite to determine relative performance.
At a high level, GPU performance appears to be mostly unchanged when comparing the Galaxy S7 to the Snapdragon 820 MDP. Performance in general is quite favorable assuming that the render resolution doesn't exceed 2560x1440.
Overall, the Adreno 530 is clearly one of the best GPUs you can get in a mobile device today. The Kirin 950's GPU really falls short in comparison. One could argue that turbo frequencies in a GPU don't make a lot of sense, but given that mobile gaming workloads can be quite bursty in nature and that gaming sessions tend to be quite short I would argue that having a GPU that can achieve significant levels of overdrive performance makes a lot of sense. The A9 is comparable if you consider the resolution of iOS devices, but when looking at the off-screen results the Adreno 530 pulls away. Of course, the real question now is how the Adreno 530 compares to the Exynos 8890's GPU in the international Galaxy S7, but that's a question that will have to be left for another day.
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lilmoe - Thursday, March 10, 2016 - link
+ resolution+ drivers
+ software/engine
+ thermal headroom
+ etc, etc, etc.....
theduckofdeath - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
If it's that trivial to make a faster GPU, I'm pretty sure Apple would have gotten a faster GPU in their phones. Faster GPU's in mobile, where battery life is really relevant is probably the trickiest part to succeed with. As you said, it basically requires you to add a ton of extra cores to make it noticeable for whichever hardware platform you're doing it on. GPU's are after all the biggest power consumers in tech these days. doubling the size of the Apple GPU would literally wreck the iPhone battery life, which I'm pretty sure you're also aware of yourself. They did after all gimp the GPU on the iPhone compared to the iPad for this exact reason.tuxRoller - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Do you mean Apple vs adreno or PVR vs adreno?I'd expect PVR to always be the most efficient GPU due to being a true tbdr.
http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/a-look-at-the-power...
realbabilu - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
You forgot the user experience. Throwing 30 fps onscreen is the minimum requirement, no need higher than that, unless Apple follows the resolution war.Apple always resolution fan in their macs, but they still think that crazy resolution is not needed, I think still true.
ciderrules - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Looks like Qualcomm spent their time creating a quality core instead of just adding more cores. Half the cores of the 8890 and by all accounts at least as fast (CPU, not GPU where it's quicker).I just wish you did a series of tests to check throttling.
tipoo - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
He said part 2tuxRoller - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
XDA already did a throttling test with a bunch of phones (6s, note 5, Nexus 6p, s7, etc). The results were that there was no throttling for the s7.retrospooty - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Nice... Mine is on pre-order now. I almost cant believe Samsung finally got it together and started making better devices with better build quality and bigger batteries and much less bloat, but I am very happy they did.anactoraaron - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
The lack of an IR blaster is the only thing holding me back from buying the s7 edge. I use the IR blaster every day on my G4, and I assume everyone with young kids would as well. Remotes just seem to always be missing...Speedfriend - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
No IR blaster!!!!! Samsung have just lost me as a customer. It is one of the best features of my S6.