The Samsung Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ Review
by Joshua Ho on October 2, 2015 8:00 AM ESTSystem Performance Cont'd
Now that we’ve covered some of the traditionally CPU-bound tests, we can start to look at tests that more strongly emphasize GPU performance. It’s worth noting here that while 3DMark is supposed to determine gaming and graphics performance, the overall score includes a CPU performance component in the form of a physics test that means it isn't much of a pure GPU test.
Overall, there's nothing really surprising about these results. The Exynos 7420 should continue to deliver great GPU performance for anyone interested in a high-end phablet or smartphone. There are some improvements in 3DMark in regards to graphics performance, but it's likely that we're just looking at newer drivers as the GPU doesn't heat up fast enough for throttling to be affecting these results.
NAND Performance
At this point, it’s probably not a surprise to know that NAND performance can have very real effects on user experience. If an OEM decides to skimp heavily on storage in order to drive the price down, it’s at least somewhat likely that the device will start to exhibit major IO pauses at some point in the device lifecycle. In order to test this, we rely on our standard storage tests which include Androbench with some custom settings to get more realistic test results along with StorageBench for iOS which is comparable to Androbench.
In the case of the Galaxy Note5 we’re still looking at a UFS storage solution similar to what was found in the Galaxy S6, but it looks like this is slightly newer as the storage is identified as a Toshiba THGLF2G8J4LBATDA chip rather than the Samsung variant that was found in the Galaxy S6. It’s unclear whether Samsung is now multi-sourcing UFS storage for their mobile devices or what distribution exists here.
Interestingly, the Note5 regresses a little bit in storage performance relative to the Galaxy S6, which is likely due to the shift to Toshiba's NAND. However, this difference is small enough that in everyday use it's unlikely that it will be noticed. Performance over time should be acceptable as well.
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melgross - Saturday, October 3, 2015 - link
The fact that you are willing to admit that you don't like iOS shows your own bias. Your bias won't allow you to read a review that goes against your bias. That's why you, and those others here who are biased against iOS, and Apple in general, find reviews that show products that you are biased for, to be worse than the iOS products, you say that the reviews are biased, rather that your views of the reviews.So you would prefer all reviews to be biased towards the products you like.
Tough! The reviews stand as they are.
KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, October 3, 2015 - link
You're angry about perceived bias that runs counter to your personal bias, even when that "bias" is backed up by hard data?Really?
beggerking@yahoo.com - Sunday, October 4, 2015 - link
Well said. Anand had been extremely biased for years now.id4andrei - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Joshua, consider using Samsung's stock browser as it is better optimized. Vanilla Chrome is notorious for sucking hard across all Android devices. Apple optimizes constantly their web performance on mobile. Google does not care so much so Android OEMs have to go the extra mile.lopri - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
I also thought that was an odd change/omission since those benches do not take very long to conduct.lilmoe - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
It's very frustrating really. They did an article with the Note 4 showing that the stock browser (coupled with Exynos) is indeed more optimized. They then recently did an even more detailed technical article proving that Samsung's stock browser is MUCH faster and MUCH more efficient than Chrome, but then they completely ignore it and use Chrome...Oh well. I'm tired of asking them to do what they obviously DON'T want to do for whatever reason...
lopri - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
This is the reason given by the same author as to why he used Samsung's stock browser in the S6/Edge review."As always, we'll start things off with our browser benchmarks. After getting to use the phone, it became clear to me that Chrome is poorly optimized against the Galaxy S6 as Samsung’s browser is clearly superior in performance. For that reason I've gone ahead and run our benchmarks on both Chrome and on the stock browser, as seen below."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9146/the-samsung-gal...
So what changed?
lilmoe - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Thanks for contributing more evidence as to why Anandtech's comparison charts are an inconsistent mess."So what changed?" I'm assuming you mean what has changed between the GS6 on release and the Note5?
I don't know....... More software optimization? Newer build of Android? Battery life? Potentially better performance because of more thermal headroom? Take a pick.
I'm able to draw my own conclusions from certain reviews. But it's getting harder and much more frustrating with time.
Kuzi - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Guys I get 3900ms on my Galaxy S6 For Kraken 1.1 using stock browser.I also think it's odd since most Android makers already include a faster stock browser with their phones. But hey, this is the new iAnandtech after all :)
ws3 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
So If Anandtech used the stock browser, the Galaxy S6 would leapfrog the two year old iPhone 5s and be only 2.25 slower than the iPhone 6s.