Early benchmarks shows Samsung Galaxy S9 well behind iPhone X in processor performance

Posted:
in General Discussion edited February 2018
The Samsung Galaxy S9 has a slower processor than the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X, according to early benchmarks of Samsung's new device, after tests of the Android smartphone's Exynos 9810 chip reveal it to lag far behind the Apple-created A10 and A11 processors.




Benchmarking of a demonstration handset at the Samsung Galaxy S9 launch event by Anandtech shows the Exynos 9810 to be a fast chip, but not as fast as the A10 and A11. Across the battery of tests, Samsung's newest processor, unveiled in January, does outperform its predecessor, but Apple's chips continued to dominate in most of the results.

An initial GeekBench 4 single core test recorded integer and floating point scores of 3,734 and 3,440 respectively for the Exynos 9810, but by comparison the A11 scored 4,630 and 3,958 respectively. The A10 also beats Samsung's chip for the Integer score, achieving 4,007, but is just 95 points behind for floating point performance at 3,345.

There is no change in position between the three chips when breaking down the scores to a per-megahertz level, as comparing the integer scores reveal the Exynos 9810 scoring 1.38 per megahertz, while the A10 scores 1.71 per megahertz, rising to 1.94 for the A11. For the floating point score, it's the sames story, with the 9810 getting 1.27 points per megahertz compared to the 1.43 points of the A10 and 1.66 of the A11.

Graph from Anandtech
Graph from Anandtech


Using different benchmarks for the phones themselves instead of narrowing down to the processor, the results stayed fairly similar with the iPhone 8 and iPhone X beating the Galaxy S9 Plus. Using WebXPRT 2015, the iPhone X and iPhone 8 score 352 and 349 respectively, almost double the 178 points achieved by the Galaxy S9 Plus.

Under Speedometer 2.0, the gap between the devices extends, as the Galaxy S9 Plus scored just 26.70 in the benchmark compared to the 88.90 of the iPhone 8 and 87.20 of the iPhone X.

In both of these tests, the iPhone 7 also manages to best the Galaxy S9 Plus, achieving 199 under WebXPRT 2015 and 55.20 under Speedometer 2.0.

Graph from Anandtech
Graph from Anandtech


Andrei Frumusanu of Anandtech believes there may have been an issue with the device being tested, as it was "barely able to distinguish itself from last year's Exynos 8895." While noting the larger cores were reaching their maximum set clock speed, Frumusanu suggests it could be issues with the scheduler and the DVFS configuration that's causing the handset on show to underperform.

A Samsung spokesperson did confirm that the demonstration units were running special firmware for Mobile World Congress, adding that it may not be optimized to the hardware as of yet. Frumusanu considers it hard to believe Samsung would limit the performance for their flagship smartphones for the show, nor that the company would alter its scheduler settings for the occasion.

Another notable element is that Samsung has clocked the four performance cores used in the Galaxy S9's processor at 2.7 gigahertz, down from the maximum 2.9 gigahertz claimed at the launch of the chip.

Testing the Mali G72MP18 GPU included in the Galaxy S9 Plus revealed the same story, with its score of 45.70 peak frames per second on GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 beaten by the iPhone 8's 60.34 and the iPhone X's 64.19. Not much change was seen under the GFXBench T-Rex 2.7 test, with the Galaxy S9 Plus peaking at 143.4 frames per second while the iPhone 8 and iPhone X got 171.4 and 176.6 peak framerates.

At the time of its launch, Samsung promoted the Exynos 9810 as using a 10-nanometer process, with an improved architecture that was claimed to double the single-core performance of its predecessor, while increasing multi-core performance by around 40 percent. Samsung also boasted of its "neural network-based deep learning" capabilities which can help with image processing, a feature similar to the "Neural Engine" used in Apple's A11 Bionic processor.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 44
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    it is now coming down to software optimization. pure processor power is not enough, unless the underlining code is optimize around the processor users will never see the performance. Even though the benchmarks try to work directly with the processor they can not they still have to interface with the operating system to execute code on the processor. The only way to eliminate the operating systems is to remove and replace it with the benchmark software which we know is not happening.

    This is why Apple has the advantage and will always have the advantage. Google can not optimize their software to work with all the versions of processors.
    StrangeDaysalbegarcdoozydozenmagman1979sockrolidaegeanwatto_cobraMuntz
  • Reply 2 of 44
    tipootipoo Posts: 1,141member
    Incidentally this also shows the limitations of using Geekbench alone as an indicator, the Exynos variant is way ahead (of the Snapdragon)  per core, but in further tests has issues getting that on the ground. 

    My suggestion would be a longer contiguous test variant in Geekbench 5 or whatever, maybe the Exynos is only able to power up its big cores for the very short subtests in Geekbench 4. Everything finishes these tests so fast now it's only seconds of heatup followed by seconds of cooldown. 
    edited February 2018 doozydozen
  • Reply 3 of 44
    tipootipoo Posts: 1,141member
    maestro64 said:
    it is now coming down to software optimization. pure processor power is not enough, unless the underlining code is optimize around the processor users will never see the performance. Even though the benchmarks try to work directly with the processor they can not they still have to interface with the operating system to execute code on the processor. The only way to eliminate the operating systems is to remove and replace it with the benchmark software which we know is not happening.

    This is why Apple has the advantage and will always have the advantage. Google can not optimize their software to work with all the versions of processors.

    Apple is shipping the widest ARM cores out there at 6-issue, everyone else is still playing with 4-issue. Nvidia tried 7 but their binary translation attempt made performance too weird. 

    Since core complexity goes up exponentially with width, Apple is also spending twice as much silicon per core, or at least were last year as the competition. 

    Point being it's not just some ambiguous whole banana optimization, Apple is shipping the most advanced ARM CPU cores in a phone period  regardless of OS. For the Exynos Anandtech does mention it's a pre-release scheduler so some of it could be software, but even if things were perfectly optimized it would not be as good per clock as Apples wide core. 
    GG1radarthekatalbegarcpscooter63doozydozenjony0magman1979sergiozsockrolidnetmage
  • Reply 4 of 44
    Want to bet (once Google gets rolling) they’ll beat all other Android phones by 20% in speed tests?

    In other words, Android will be optimized for Google phones...
    edited February 2018 watto_cobra
  • Reply 5 of 44
    I don't think anyone buying a Galaxy S9 would care about the processor being slower than Apple's A-series processor. They're going to be buying the S9 for the Infinity Display, the variable iris camera and the headphone jack. As long as those features work, I would think users would be more than satisfied. The iPhone really doesn't get that much praise for processing power and Apple mostly downplays benchmarks. All people did was whine about the iPhone X's display notch, so everyone has their own preferences about what they feel is most important on a smartphone.
    singularityalbegarcgregg thurmanavon b7doozydozenretrogustoredgeminipa
  • Reply 6 of 44
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    rob53ericthehalfbeemwhiteradarthekatalbegarcbrucemcpscooter63LukeCagejony0magman1979
  • Reply 7 of 44
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    muthuk_vanalingamavon b7gatorguy
  • Reply 8 of 44
    foggyhillfoggyhill Posts: 4,767member
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    Oh, please... Do you listen to yourself, what's your actual goal here on this site.
     
    Apple is using the CPU's procesing power for Face ID, that's user experience right there buddy and the fact it's also as always a smaller phone with a bigger battery to feature ratio is also linked to the processing power. Oh, and there is the whole AR thing, lets see if Samsung can actually do anything good there.
    StrangeDayspscooter63patchythepiratejony0magman1979doozydozennetmageredgeminipawatto_cobraMuntz
  • Reply 9 of 44
    jkichlinejkichline Posts: 1,369member
    This isn't surprising. Apple has way more resources to continue custom CPU/GPU development with an endgame in sight.
    jbdragonpscooter63jony0watto_cobrachia
  • Reply 10 of 44
    auxioauxio Posts: 2,717member
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    And now they have both a great user experience and specs (if they care).
    edited February 2018 StrangeDaysmwhiteking editor the gratepscooter63jony0watto_cobrachia
  • Reply 11 of 44
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    C’mom as a DF reader I know you know the answer... Gruber nailed it as usual:

    You can’t bring this up in public without a certain segment of Android fans losing their goddamn minds over it. “I thought specs don’t matter?” they say, and point to articles I (or whoever else brings this up) wrote in the past arguing that specs aren’t the only thing that matters. [...] For me, it’s the overall experience that matters, and that’s largely defined by the software platform.

    But Samsung isn’t the company with the proprietary chips that blow away the industry commodity chips, Apple is. So iPhone users get the best in both regards: they get the iOS experience and Apple-designed hardware, and they get the vastly superior CPU and GPU. And Android users who want industry-leading performance are shit out of luck. This is unprecedented in computing history.

    https://daringfireball.net/2017/09/iphone_x_event_thoughts_and_observations
    edited February 2018 mwhiteRonnnieOradarthekatpscooter63LukeCagejony0doozydozenwatto_cobraMuntzchia
  • Reply 12 of 44
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    Apple is very precise on specs. From the beginning Apple has been giving specs of how long the iPhone battery will last playing video. But the Android crowd especially Samsung only gave how long the battery will last while talking. 
    watto_cobrachia
  • Reply 13 of 44
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,905member
    TSMC made Apple processors for last few iPhones so Samsung don't have access to Apple's design like previous times. Hard copy something if don't have access.
    patchythepirateLukeCagemagman1979doozydozenwatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 44

    foggyhill said:
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    Oh, please... Do you listen to yourself, what's your actual goal here on this site.
     
    Apple is using the CPU's procesing power for Face ID, that's user experience right there buddy and the fact it's also as always a smaller phone with a bigger battery to feature ratio is also linked to the processing power. Oh, and there is the whole AR thing, lets see if Samsung can actually do anything good there.
    Yeah this guy is a pure contrarian. Posts crits on reasoned DED columns without even reading the column he’s criticizing, because Apple. There’s a word for that...
    mwhitepscooter63jony0magman1979doozydozenwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 44
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 

    When did the Android “tech savvy” users STOP caring about specs?

    That’s easy. When Apple processors surpassed anything Samsung or Qualcomm made and starting winning the spec war. The A7 is what really pissed them off (catching everyone with their pants down by making the first 64bit mobile processor).
    RonnnieOradarthekatpscooter63StrangeDaysLukeCagejony0magman1979doozydozennetmagewatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 44
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,382member
    The vast improvements to every aspect of Apple maps since it launched has been stunning.
    I don't think anyone buying a Galaxy S9 would care about the processor being slower than Apple's A-series processor. They're going to be buying the S9 for the Infinity Display, the variable iris camera and the headphone jack. As long as those features work, I would think users would be more than satisfied. The iPhone really doesn't get that much praise for processing power and Apple mostly downplays benchmarks. All people did was whine about the iPhone X's display notch, so everyone has their own preferences about what they feel is most important on a smartphone.
    So the "headphone jack" is now considered a major feature for Android devices? My, how far they've fallen. Reminds me of the "WE RUN FLASH!!" days. If one of your marketing bullet points is a port created in the 1800s and already obsoleted on competing devices, you know you probably have a shit product.
    tmayanantksundaramking editor the grateradarthekatbrucemcStrangeDaysjony0magman1979doozydozennetmage
  • Reply 17 of 44
    After years of compromising on user experience, build quality and security, because specs matter most. Now they have to compromise on specs as well. What is left to champion as the only thing that matters, 3.5mm headphone jack? At this point it seems the price of loyalty to the Android platform is accepting you will always be behind the curve. 
    radarthekatgregg thurmanjony0magman1979doozydozenwatto_cobrachia
  • Reply 18 of 44
    Hmmm.... the AnTuTu benchmarks shows the S9 ahead...LOL

    Then again, the article says the S9 benchmarked about the same as the S8, but all the benchmarks I can fine online show the S9 to be 35-55% faster then the S8.
    doozydozen
  • Reply 19 of 44
    lkrupp said:
    I am amused by the hypocrisy of the “specs mean everything" crowd. Apple has been hammered by this crowd incessantly for years. Geekbench tests have been hung around Apple’s neck like a millstone. Now comes Apple’s custom designed processors that smoke the competition and, miracle of miracles, suddenly these tests are flawed and meaningless. Granted, if you were to put the A11 in an Android phone it probably wouldn’t improve performance much, if any, because of the software. But to the spec monkeys the 8 core Snapdragon simply has to outperform the 6 core A11 because, well, 6 is less than 8. Simple arithmetic, right?
    Since when do Apple fans care about specs? I thought it was all about user experience? 
    Are you reading the thread?
    pscooter63doozydozenfastasleepwatto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 44
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    Good showing from Samsung if those Geekbench scores hold up. Kind of strange Anandtech didn’t post the multithreaded Geekbench scores since it should have been right there too.

    However, if the other Android benchmarks from Anandtech don’t have any issues, it’s a very bad showing from Samsung. Those show that the S9 doesn’t outperform the S8 models and the Snapdragon 845 handily outperforms it. Maybe Samsung is hot rodding Geekbench, who knows. Wait and see.
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