The Xiaomi Mi9 Review: Flagship Performance At a Mid-Range Price
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 13, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Xiaomi
- Snapdragon 855
- Xiaomi Mi9
GPU Performance
GPU performance of the Mi9 will be dictated by how Xiaomi was able to implement the SoC in the physical hardware shell of the phone, and how well it’s able to dissipate the heat throughout the body of the phone. Other factors on the software side such as thermal throttling limits can also greatly impact the results, and as we’ve seen in the S855 we can see very much a wide range of results amongst the many Snapdragon 855 devices.
On the 3DMark Physics test which is a CPU stress test within a GPU thermally constrained power scenario, we see the Mi9 perform very well in the sustained long-term results. It’s not quite as good as the OnePlus 7 Pro or the RedMagic 3, but it beats all other Snapdragon 855 devices.
In the graphics test, the positioning shifts a bit amongst the devices, with the Mi9 falling back to the middle of the pack. Still it’s a good performance given that the Mi9 has one of the lower body masses amongst the phones, and thus not quite as good thermal dissipation abilities.
In GFXBench, we’re seeing again some very good results for the GPU performance of the Mi9, however it stands a bit out that the delta is greater in workloads like T-Rex. Here the large framerates put more stress on the CPU as well as memory of the phone, likely creating more heat and in turn forcing the Mi9 to throttle more.
Overall, the Mi9’s gaming performance was very good and competitive. It’s not the best but it’s also far from the worst amongst Snapdragon 855 devices. The odd thing here is that the Mi9 performs significantly better than Xiaomi’s own Black Shark 2 gaming-oriented phone whose sustained performance just completely collapses in our stress tests. We’ll be reviewing the Black Shark 2 separately in the next few weeks, but things aren’t looking well for that phone.
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Shlong - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
Then disable your adblocker. Hard to pay the writers, server bills, when 70% of your users are ad blocking.PeachNCream - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
If a hypothetical 70% of your audience is blocking ads on the site you run, maybe it says more about the advertising than the site's visitors.valinor89 - Friday, September 13, 2019 - link
I used to periodically disable the adblocker for this site, but each time I had to reenable it because sometimes it has obnoxious ads, autoplay videos, pop ups that hide content and what not.s.yu - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
Does this really work? Are you sure that it's the displays not the clicks that generate revenue? If it's the clicks might as well click all the ads once in a while and block them all when reading.Shlong - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
So which sites don't have annoying advertising? I use adblock but for sites I frequently visit, I disable, like at Anandtech, Ars-Technica, and others.FunBunny2 - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
"Then disable your adblocker. Hard to pay the writers, server bills, when 70% of your users are ad blocking."that's a great gulp of Flavour Aid. think about it, for just a second. will folks who choose to conserve bandwidth (both on the innterTubes and their brains) by ad blocking be likely to ever, ever, ever click on such ads? the answer, of course, is never, never, never. IOW, the ad revenue driven sites are scamming the ad buyers, by 'selling eyes'. which is exactly the same way that print media went. and the innterTubes sites proclaimed that they were oh so new and disruptive. right.
sites have the tech to sell click-throughs, rather than eyes, but they're scared shitless to do that since the number is minuscule. not to pick on AT specifically, of course. all these sites have the same problem. if they did sell click-throughs then ad blocking is a non-issue, of course.
Qasar - Saturday, September 14, 2019 - link
sadly i use an ad blocker as well, i tried disabling it once, and man.. the ads are EVERYWHERE, makes most of the site practically unreadable. and the auto playing videos, are MOST annoying.Shlong - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
They are annoying but if people continue to block the ads, Anandtech and similar sites won't be around for that much longer.Korguz - Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - link
then they should tone some of them down, or like some have asked, switch to a paid version with no ads.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, September 18, 2019 - link
"Anandtech and similar sites won't be around for that much longer."once again: sell based on click-throughs and be done with it. selling 'eyes' is a total scam. in fact, selling click-throughs just might, might lead to better ads, not just more obnoxious ones. :)