Madtiger

Seth2015 said:

@tmay People use different devices. I have both an iPhone X (standby phone every 2 weeks) and Huawei. You want a real world opinion? You can't see the difference in speed in actual using the phones. There's no jitter or judder, despite what Strangedays thinks he knows.

Anyhow - but based on the comments here slating Androids, it'd be interesting to see which the people have used (or even read about;). There's a great world out there of mobile phones! @Madtiger wasn't even aware that Huawei phones be bought anywhere in the world - yet they're the second largest manufacture behind Samsung? So, it's very interesting how he (and others) can be that opinionated on something he has zero idea about.  

Seth2015 said:

A cross platform benchmark isn't dead accurate. I've already told you why and given an example - unsure why you're missing it?

My i5 at home, I can install Linux and run a benchmark - let's say I get 12,000 little numbers on the screen. I now install Windows 10 on the same chip and get a 10,000. So for those that are slightly slower here (I'm looking at your madtiger) this is the same chip with a different result depending on the OS layer. 

iOS is really efficient OS. It doesn't have the extra bloatware that Android has once a manufacture has got hold of it and put on their own skin. A fair comment would be the chip + OS is delivery these awesome figures ... but to pretend the A11 streets ahead of the Kirin 780 is just silly bias on your side. It really is the combination of the two

And lastly, numbers on the screen aren't going to tell you the real world user performance. Yes - the iPhone s quick and smooth ... but my Mate 20 Pro is just the same. I've had zero issues with regards to speed ... but I guess I place more emphasis on real world than numbers on the screen ?  

Your comment was that the devices run different OSes. True. However you say that means that the tests are invalid, which isn't true. 

So the kernel is the first item. The kernel performs several tasks relevant to our tests: Tasking scheduling, RAM management and IO. We can assume that the first is negligible as there is only one high priority tasking running, the benchmark itself. The exception is during the multi-core tests. The question is does one OS provide a significant performance boost over the other due to its scheduling of threads. No, it doesn't. For proof of this we can look further afield to Linux and macOS in general. Will there be a difference, sure, but not enough to bias the results.  OS architecture affects performance when the program makes a system call. Geekbench and Antutu, though they have subtests that test system calls, are mostly looping common tasks that are confined to userspace and really just runs on bare metal. They don't touch the kernel.

Next screen resolution. This of course is a factor for GPU tests. For Geekbench it is completely irrelevant. For AnTuTu it is indeed a factor, however AnTuTu has also altered its loads to include off screen rendering. Also, the screen resolutions of the devices under test are similar, not the same, but similar. So, overall nothing here, please move along.

Up next is RAM. Well RAM isn’t part of the OS and it is actually part of the subsystem that we want to test. The differences in RAM performance are important to us, hence running the benchmarks in the first place. If you mean RAM management then that is a part of the kernel as I mentioned earlier. If the tests are doing lots of dynamic memory requests, asking for RAM from the OS and then returning it, then you would be correct. This would exercise the OS much more than the hardware. However, that is not what the tests do.  Display and RAM...Geekbench is an off-screen app. It doesn't push anything that the display resolution would affect. RAM might be an issue but it seems Geekbench fits well within the RAM of both devices just fine.

Now we come to storage. It is indeed true that Geekbench contains IO related tests and it is also true that these do have a heavier OS reliance than the other tests. However two things to note. 1) Is that the tests are the same on both operating systems (i.e. using SQLite) and they aren’t specific aimed directly at the native filesystem. 2) While I agree that a bias dependent on the performance of the filesystem will exist, the question is will that biases be more than the performance characteristics of the hardware. Tough question. I will go with no, because the same tests run on different generations of the same platform (say the iPhone 7S compared to the iPhone 8 compared to the X) show the same relative performance increase as observed across platforms. In other words, if the processor under test shows performance gain X on iOS compared to iOS, but a very different relative performance gain on iOS to Android then something is wrong. However, we don’t see that.

One more things to mention.The tests from Geekbench and AnTuTu are written in C, so there is no comparison of the Java Runtime library with Obj-C/Swift etc.

The only real variable is the CPU governor and power throttling schemes. That can indeed affect performance from device to device, not just OS to OS. But Geekbench at least already has that taken into consideration. It has built-in "cooldown" periods when it detects CPU throttling.

Finally, cross platform benchmarking is used all across the industry as a way to test hardware while minimizing the impact of the OS. Well known examples including tests like SPECint.

DuhSesame said:

I do want to say something different, that 855 may have a chance go neck-to-neck at multi-core performance against A12.  Single-Core is getting bottlenecked, every major player are moving to multi-cores.  

Unless Geekbench sucks so bad, that their multi-core benchmark doesn’t count, iPhone never leads over Android until A11.

Seth2015 said:

That's a better argument ... Thanks strangedays.

You don't think maybe they could spend some money on a better? Maybe something that lasts a little longer? iPhone batteries die pretty early in in any very tests. 

On the screen - from the outside, it looks like iPhone XR is running a screen from 2013. It can't do FullHD - you reckon this is all the eye can see? There is no need for anything higher?

Seth2015 said:

And I have another question ...

These fancy high end chips that are years ahead of the competition - that's benchmarks right? So, cross platform benchmarking? Two totally different OSs?

I can take my Intel i5 and run the same benchmark using three OSs ... With different results. An OS plays a huge difference in the numbers you see on screen benchmarks. So, um, I do find the claims in this super chip unrealistic

Lastly, I use a iPhone X as my work phone every 2nd weekend. It's not a bad phone but it isn't my take home phone. However, real world speed of it and my Huawei are really kinda the same.

Who here has actually used the Huawei? I know you all think I'm trolling, but from the comments I've seen here, I'm actually one of the few with valid statements.