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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vipuls1979 - Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - link
I have posted a comparision on http://mobiknowhow.blogspot.com and i personally think one should go ahead with S4 instead of HTC Onesrihari - Thursday, May 23, 2013 - link
Anand, non-technical people will not be able to judge the better phone by looking at the GPU benchmark onscreen numbers(with varying screen resolutions for different phone). so, i suggest you to post *only* GPU benchmark off-screen numbers.cadjak - Saturday, May 25, 2013 - link
This device has a primary function that seems NOT to get examined in reviews. How well does it send and/or receive a simple voice communication? The S3 had some serious issues around reception in areas with marginal LTE signal. I have had to tweak mine to get it to reliably work as a phone, by setting it to CDMA auto (PRL). I am trying to find out if the S4 will have similar connection issues, but I'm not having much luck.vipuls1979 - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
i would sincerely like to go with Galaxy S4 rather then HTC one, updates released by Samsung are more quicker then HTC anddid you know a recent Press Trust of India Release says Camera sales are down due to Smartphone camera
full report at http://mobiknowhow.blogspot.com
paul_59 - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
Interesting comments about differences between S4 8064AB &.HTC One 8064TI ran a custom kernel and overclock HTC One to 1.89Ghz (S4 1.9Ghz)
Got sunspider 0.91 benchmark result 550 ms .
I realise benchmarking is subject to lots of variables
vipuls1979 - Thursday, June 6, 2013 - link
Guys, i hope you must be aware of latest blackberry Q10 launched in Indiafor more details visit http://mobiknowhow.blogspot.com/2013/06/blackberry...
MonkeyK - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - link
Are the battery test stats really right? 1 hour of additional Wifi web browsing time is huge. But every other review that I have read shows the S4 having slightly longer battery life. So what gives?elucid - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
I guess Part 2 is not coming? If it still is, a battery test with a real LTE network like Verizon (or even ATT) would be interesting.reapergato - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - link
2 months later and still no Part 2? I sure hope with all that extra real world testing the part 2 article will knock our socks off....Optimummind - Sunday, June 30, 2013 - link
It's been over 2 months and still no Part 2?Also, after re-reading the review, it seems the article has been edited from its original release.