Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and 10.1 Review
by Jarred Walton on March 22, 2014 9:30 PM ESTPerformance Benchmarks
In the world of laptops where I come from, we’re fast reaching the point – if not well beyond it – where talking about raw performance only matters to a small subset of users. Everything with Core i3 and above is generally “fast enough” that users don’t really notice or care. For tablets, the difference in speed between a budget and a premium device is far more dramatic. I’ve included numbers from the Dell Venue 8, which I’ll be providing a short review of in the near future. While the price isn’t bad, the two Samsung tablets feel substantially snappier – as they should. We’ll start with the CPU/system benchmarks and then move to the GPU/Graphics tests.
In terms of CPU speed, the Apple A7 chips still take the lead in all of our tests, though not always by a large margin. We’re also using different browsers (Chrome vs. Safari), and JavaScript benchmarks aren’t always the greatest way of comparing CPU performance. I ran additional benchmarks on the two Samsung tablets just to see if I could get some additional information; you can find a table of results for AndeBench, Basemark OS II, and Geekbench 3.
| CPU/System Benchmarks of Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro | |||
| Benchmark | Subtest | Tab Pro 10.1 | Tab Pro 8.4 |
| Andebench | Native | 13804 | 17533 |
| Java | 708 | 790 | |
| Basemark OS II | Overall | 865 | 1062 |
| System | 1542 | 1529 | |
| Memory | 419 | 503 | |
| Graphics | 1032 | 2555 | |
| Web | 838 | 724 | |
| Geekbench 3 | Single | 942 | 910 |
| Multi | 2692 | 2847 | |
| Integer Single | 1028 | 967 | |
| Integer Multi | 3135 | 3343 | |
| FP Single | 897 | 848 | |
| FP Multi | 3106 | 3080 | |
| Memory Single | 860 | 922 | |
| Memory Multi | 982 | 1391 | |
Interestingly, the Samsung Exynos 5 Octa 5420 just seems to come up short versus the Snapdragon 800 in most of these tests. However, there’s a bit more going on than you might expect. We checked for cheating in the benchmarks, and found no evidence that either of these tablets was doing anything unusual in terms of boosting clock speeds. What we did find is that the Pro 10.1 is frequently not running at maximum frequency – or anywhere near it – in quite a few of our CPU tests.
Specifically, Sunspider, Kraken, and Andebench had the cores hitting a maximum 1.1-1.3GHz. The Pro 8.4 meanwhile would typically hit the maximum 2.3GHz clock speed. The result, as you might imagine, is that the 8.4 ends up being faster, sometimes by a sizeable margin. Basemark OS II, Geekbench 3, and AnTuTu on the other hand didn’t have any such odd behavior, with the Pro 10.1 often hitting 1.8-1.9GHz (on one or more cores) during the testing, and when that happens it often ends up slightly faster than the Pro 8.4.
Which benchmark results are more "valid"? Well, that's a different subject, but as we're comparing Samsung tablets running more or less the same build of Android, we can reasonably compare the two and say that the 8.4 has better overall performance. Updated drivers or tweaking of the power governor on the 10.1 might change things down the road, but we can only test what exists right now.
Overall, both systems are sufficiently fast for a modern premium tablet, so I wouldn’t worry too much about whether or not you’re getting maximum clock speeds in a few benchmarks – in normal use you likely won’t notice one way or the other. But we’re only talking about the CPU performance when we say you won’t see the difference; let’s move over to the graphics benchmarks to see how the Galaxy Pro tablets fare.
Graphics Performance
Outside of the 3DMark Unlimited Graphics Test 1 result, the Pro 8.4 sweeps the tables against its big brother. Playing games like Angry Birds Go! or any other reasonably demanding 3D titles in my experience confirms the above results – Adreno 330 beats the Mali-T628; end of discussion. I also had a few quirks crop up with the Pro 10.1 graphics, like Plants vs. Zombies 2 at one point stopped rendering all the fonts properly; a reboot fixed the problem, but I may have seen one or two other rendering glitches during testing. I have some additional results for GPU testing as well via GFXBench 3.0 if you’re interested:
| Graphics Benchmarks of Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro | |||
| Benchmark | Subtest | Tab Pro 10.1 | Tab Pro 8.4 |
| GFXBench 3.0 Onscreen | Manhattan (FPS) | 2.9 | 5.8 |
| T-Rex (FPS) | 14 | 17.1 | |
| ALU (FPS) | 13 | 59.8 | |
| Alpha Blending (MB/s) | 3295 | 6847 | |
| Fill (MTex/s) | 1956 | 3926 | |
| GFXBench 3.0 Offscreen | Manhattan (FPS) | 5.5 | 10.8 |
| T-Rex (FPS) | 22.9 | 25.9 | |
| ALU (FPS) | 25.6 | 138 | |
| Alpha Blending (MB/s) | 3093 | 7263 | |
| Fill (MTex/s) | 1956 | 3780 | |
The new Manhattan benchmark was one of the other tests where the Pro 10.1 didn’t seem to render things properly, and even then the Pro 8.4 ends up with nearly twice the frame rates. The ALU, Alpha Blending, and Fill rate scores might explain some of what’s going on, where in some cases the Pro 8.4 is more than four times as fast. Regardless, if you want maximum frame rates, I’d suggest getting the Pro 8.4 over the 10.1.
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jwh7 - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
"I really can’t find any other direct competition in the Android market for the Samsung Pro 8.4 right now, so it's an easy recommendation."LG G-Pad 8.3 !? ...and now easily found for $250 or less; or there's the Play Store edition with newer Android version. (Yes, I have the former and I'm using it now, so perhaps I am biased :-) Sure it is 'only' a 1920x1200 display in comparison to the Samsung 8.4, but I really like the LG added features versus what I've read in reviews of its Play Store edition. I only wish / hope the LG version updates to Android 4.3, or newer, eventually. I don't think I would like the Samsung's home/back button setup, either. I will close only by saying I like the LG enough that I have no desire to root/ROM it, which is saying something.
JarredWalton - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
Snapdragon 600 and 1080p means I don't really consider it "direct competition". Sorry if that wasn't clear. It's more like an alternative in the lines of the Nexus 7 -- different, good, but not all the same features.realtanu - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
No one will sell me a Samsung 10.1 Note 2014 - This is why Apple wins. I want a Samsung 10.1 Note 2014 with Cellular. I drive to BestBuy and they try to sell me one with WiFi, no Cellular - but they have Apple. I go drive to a Verizon Store in NJ and they can order and ship one for me, but easier to order online. I order online at Verizon Wireless (since they are only ones offering cellular) and I fill out extra forms because my delivery address is different than home address. They say not a problem and call a 800 # after placing order to confirm shipping address; and I get an email saying the same. I call 800 #, am on hold for 20 minutes, get to a representative, on hold for another 5 minutes and they tell me they automatically cancelled my order and I cannot get it shipped to a different address online. I call a NY Verizon Wireless store and ask them whether they have it stock; they try to sell me an old 10.1 and then after clarifying, they tell me they don't have any in stock in NY and to go to NJ or order online.After ~5 hours wasted trying to buy a Samsung 10.1 Note 2014, I think I will just order an iPad Air from Apple.com with AT&T data plan - and it looks like I can order with Amazon Prime too. I really didn't want to buy into the Apple ecosystem, but I'm now seeing the value of it... just being able to buy the product easily is eye-opening versus my Samsung/Verizon experience.
hughlle - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
Funny, because i can go straight onto Verizon and order one straight away. I don't find much merit in your argument ;)realtanu - Monday, March 24, 2014 - link
Wasn't making an argument as much as reporting the news ;)I order online at Verizon Wireless (since they are only ones offering cellular) and I fill out extra forms because my delivery address is different than home address. They say not a problem and call a 800 # after placing order to confirm shipping address; and I get an email saying the same. I call 800 #, am on hold for 20 minutes, get to a representative, on hold for another 5 minutes and they tell me they automatically cancelled my order and I cannot get it shipped to a different address online.
996_gt2 - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
The disk performance benchmarks are not completely correct for the Dell Venue 8 Pro.The disk performance numbers for the Venue 8 Pro are roughly doubled after the newest A05 BIOS, which enables eMMC HS200 by default. (HS200 could be enabled in earlier BIOSes, but was not enabled by default).
So the Venue 8 Pro should really be at the top of all of these charts, instead of at the bottom.
With the A05 BIOS, I get the following results in Crystaldiskmark:
Sequential read: 175.2 MB/s
Sequential write: 76.67 MB/s
4k read: 15.04 MB/s
4k write: 14.07 MB/s
JarredWalton - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
I'll see about retesting before posting any final review. Thanks.themossie - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
I assume these benchmarks are for the Venue 8 (not the Venue 8 Pro). Is the BIOS update for the non-pro as well?996_gt2 - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
@themossie:Good call. I read the charts and was thought that the results looked very low for the Venue 8 Pro, and then I did some searching and saw that there was also a "non-Pro" Android based Venue 8. If the #s reported in the charts are for the Android Venue 8, then they could very well be correct. Rather confusing naming on Dell's part.
JarredWalton - Sunday, March 23, 2014 - link
Okay, that explains things -- I was wondering where I would get a BIOS update for the Venue 8. LOL. So it seems the Venue 8 has rather slow NAND compared to the Venue 8 Pro.