Samsung Galaxy S 4 Review - Part 1
by Brian Klug on April 24, 2013 12:01 AM ESTGPU Performance
Both CPU and GPU clocks are higher on Samsung's version of the Snapdragon 600 (APQ8064AB). While the Snapdragon 600 used in HTC's One (APQ8064T) features a max GPU frequency of 400MHz, in the Galaxy S 4 the max frequency moves up to 450MHz. The increase in max frequency alone is modest (~12.5%), but the gains in GLBenchmark are far more pronounced for whatever reason.
As always, we'll start with low level analysis beginning with GLBenchmark's fill rate test:
Interestingly enough, fill rate is actually lower than on the HTC One. With so many variables at work here it's difficult to say exactly why this is, but the lowest hanging fruit is to blame it on memory bandwidth differences. Without getting inside the Galaxy S 4 (or more extensive poking around) it's unclear what speed Samsung is running its memory at, which could explain the differences here. We tried tossing the Galaxy S 4 in the freezer and re-running the test but performance didn't improve substantially. Note that GLB's fill rate benchmark is the only one that did not show the Galaxy S 4 ahead of HTC's One in raw performance.
The low level triangle tests all show significant performance gains over the only other Snapdragon 600 based phone we have (HTC One). Again, I'm not really sure what's going on here with APQ8064AB but the gains here are greater than what clock speed alone can be responsible for. Samsung could be running at higher GPU frequencies more aggressively than HTC or it could have software advantages (a newer Adreno driver perhaps?) or there could be more to this APQ8064AB mystery than we realize.
Egypt HD delivers a fairly sane number however. The Galaxy S 4 manages to outperform the HTC One by around 17% here. Again it's unclear why we're seeing greater performance than clock scaling alone would provide but the net is that the Galaxy S 4 does deliver better GPU performance than other Snapdragon 600 based devices today.
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Crocography - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
I really wish Anadtech would start comparing all of these to the Nokia 920.GTRagnarok - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
What's part 2 going to be? Just the Exynos version?theduckofdeath - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
"he weight argument is an interesting one. If you compare the all-plastic Galaxy S 4 to the all-metal HTC One, there's a difference of 13 grams."The Samsung also has a much larger battery, which is the most dense and weight-adding element in a phone. It also has a larger display. So, the real benefit is a lot more than 13 grams.
scaramoosh - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_S4_ShootOut_1.ht...What's that? The GS4 actually has an amazing screen?
risa2000 - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
My Galaxy Note 2 with Samsung charger charges in around two and half hour since the beginning until now (6 months). Could it be because of different power voltage (as I am in Europe on 230 V AC)?jleach1 - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Why the heck would you call the inclusion of a mucroSD slot "disappointing"? What geek in their right mind would say that?And who in their right mind would pay $100 for an extra 16gb of NAND, when we all know it costs pennies, and we can buy a 32gb Class 10 card for $20?
ziggybiggunz - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Its $100 more for an extra 32gb on the HTC actually, for a total of 64gbziggybiggunz - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
HTC One buyers have become a very vicious cohort. Some poor chap on youtube had to remove his voice and disable comment because be was getting death threats for disliking the One. Every single comparison video on youtube is loaded with " fuck you for liking the S4", "Samsung paid you to like it, you fuck", "fuck plastics", "fuck Samsung"....."fucking magnest, how do they work". These are the same people who not to long ago where sucking Samsungs dick over the GS2, Gnex, and the Note 1/2. Chill out. HTC One is good phone, but dont start shitting over samsung all of a sudden because someone came along and gave you a metal body. Was the pain of having your hipster friends making fun of your plastic phone becoming that unbearable? Before the One came out, Android users prime ammunition for iPhone users was the removable battery and expansion option, and all the "gimicks" of Samsung flagships. So samsung gave you that again, but used polycorbonate, so its chopped liver now? As soon as someone says anything good about the S4, you hear..."nope, its not aluminum like the One". Give me a break....remember who your daddy iscryosx - Sunday, April 28, 2013 - link
The HTC One deserves the praise but the extremists are kind of getting out of hand...bhima - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - link
Plastic is sort of bleh when it comes to this price bracket, but I feel Brian and Anand dismiss the desire for a removable battery too easily when comparing this phone to say the HTC One. On one hand, they say the removable battery isn't an issue because you upgrade your phone in 2 years (its implied), but on the other hand, they rightly make the point that we will most likely be buying these phones like how we buy computers in the near future due to carriers moving away from contracts. If this is the case, and we will be shelling out full retail, I would assume people would start to buy their phone like a computer and want to keep it LONGER than 2 years because they don't want to drop $300+ dollars on a new phone.Hell, the HTC One or the S4 are both such powerful phones that they could easily last much longer than 2 years, but the S4 is the only one that can actually last past this point... whereas the HTC One will be bricked due to a dying battery. I just find it strange that they had such great insight on how we will look at purchasing phones in the future without adding the foresight of battery concerns due to people keeping their phones longer.