Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review - Part 1
by Brian Klug on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTCPU Performance
For our CPU analysis we're left with our usual browser based benchmarks. Again this isn't an ideal list of tests but it's the best we've got for now. Where necessary we'll show results using both stock and Chrome browsers. We did notice a single case of thermal based throttling under SunSpider 0.9.1 (the benchmark alone is ine, but running it after a bunch of others caused throttling), so we're once again presenting results in our standard test environment as well as inside of a freezer to show peak performance. Although the Galaxy S 4 managed to throttle in one of our tests, the device never felt all that warm to the touch. We could be seeing some of the same aggressively set thermal governors that we saw back with the Nexus 4. It's also worth pointing out that we're simply in an era of pushing the limits of just how fast you can go at 28nm LP in many of these smartphones. The mobile SoC vendors also need to do a better job of power management, enabling controlled bursting to these high frequency states vs. sustaining the higher frequencies until there's a serious enough thermal issue that the CPU cores have to throttle themselves significantly.
Under Kraken in particular we see a measurable improvement in performance over the 1.7GHz S600 used in the HTC One. Qualcomm still can't attain the peak performance of ARM's Cortex A15, but once again we're looking at a much lower power profile.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
335 Comments
View All Comments
jeffkibuule - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Pretty sure he only has that on loan for brief periods of time. He doesn't own it, too expensive.B3an - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Brian, will you be getting the Exynos 5 octo-core version of the S4 in for testing? I find the SoC interesting.Bramsey89 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Wow biased much? Why did anantech let this guy review this? He's already shown he's biased towards the HTC One.maximumGPU - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
he said if X,Y,Z are important to you then get the S4, but if put more weight on A,B,C then HTC one is the better bet. How is that bias? go away.slatanek - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
Samsung is bringing out the trolls... brrrrrrrrrsuperflex - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
They never stop. It's like they get paid for their comments bashing HTC.Oh wait, they do according to DailyTech
berantle - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
The Samsung astroturf trolling is highly disappointing.krumme - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
What a sour tasteIs 50M S3 users are victims of Samsung brand and marketing?
The screen mode "The sanest of them all" (we understand they are sick) actually beats both Iphone and especially One on accuracy. And no words about the all important dynamics of the picture.
And the BSI camera on the S3 is the same quality as the S2? LOL. Every one on this planet shooting with both will know this is nonsense - comparing the international versions. Go to dxomark to get the numbers.
Why does this admiration of the One leads to this sour subjective nonsense about Samsung and S4?
Didnt the ultrapixels pan out as expected?
I like it more professional
Reikon - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
What are you talking about? Look at the table. The iPhone 5, One X, SGS3, Droid DNA, and the One all beat the SGS4 on accuracy, i.e. a lower dE2000.krumme - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link
And the color charts. Not that the perfect RGB spectrum is the most important.And then the all important numbers - or impressions - for dynamics of the picture is missing. Excactly the one most important factor deciding how real we judge the picture.