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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hansmuff - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I have a question about that. Is Chrome supposed to be an equalizer between the platforms? From a practical standpoint, the browser that Samsung ships is in some ways better optimized so I use that instead. Am I really missing out by not running Chrome on my S6?lilmoe - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
You're not missing out at all, the stock browser is much better. I use it, and have it synced with my FireFox account (bookmarks and tabs).zeeBomb - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I wanna see a test done on RBrowser or a Qualcomm optimized browser with the CAF Aurora files (does make your browsing up to 40% faster, you're welcolme)grayson_carr - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Chrome is very poorly optimized for Exynos processors, so you aren't missing out on your S6, but for devices with Qualcomm processors, Chrome typically runs pretty well.Ratman6161 - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
I'm wondering if the situation has changed any with Android 6. I'm assuming that all the test results for the S7 were with Marshmallow while for the S6 they are with Lollipop. I'm pointing this out because my Note 5 just got the Marshmallow update and after the update, Chrome has improved so much that I'm now using it as my default when I never did before.Might be interesting seeing a test that included s6 with Lollipop, S6 with Marshmallow and S7 to see how much of the difference is actually attributable to the OS update???
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
Unfortunately Samsung's browser is not available on our Verizon-branded sample phone. The phone only ships with Chrome, and it is not possible to install Samsung's browser at this time.The Verge is reporting that this is a Verizon decision, and that all Verizon S7s are like this.
id4andrei - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
What an interesting turn of events. Wonder why would Verizon be irked by Samsung's browser. Any thoughts Ryan? Maybe default adblocking since Verizon is also a media company.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
At this point it's open to speculation. But I believe Verizon pulled the Samsung browser from the S6 as well, in which case this is nothing new.Ratman6161 - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
I'm assuming my Verizon Note 5 would be the same as the Verizon S6? My note 5 has the browser that just says "Internet". Is that the one you are calling the Samsung Browser? Either way, Chrome is not the only browser on my phone. I got the 6.01 update last friday and still have both browsers avaiolable after the update.tipoo - Tuesday, March 8, 2016 - link
To me it still feels like Kyro doesn't aim high enough, given A9 has been shipping for months, in volume, and we're likely closer to A10. Even if A10 is a "tick" with a modest 20% performance boost, the cycle of staying behind it continues.That's the benefit of large profit margins I guess, and since just about no one but Samsung was making Android handset profits, no one was probably ordering a huge die with high IPC. Kyro comes a long way, and I'm glad they're going 2+2 with higher IPC rather than 4+4, but I guess I would have just liked it to go further and actually leapfrog the A9.
Samsung does have their own custom core in development, wonder how that compares to Qualcomms Kyro.