Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 review: Minor league

Synthetic benchmarks

The Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 is powered by a Broadcom BCM21664 chipset, which is the same as what's found on some other entry-level offerings like the Samsung Galaxy Fame. On the regular Galaxy Ace 3 and our dual-SIM model, the CPU is clocked at 1GHz, while on the LTE version it goes up to 1.2 GHz. The Galaxy Ace 2 also had a dual-core CPU but it was of the now-defunct NovaThor variety and it maxed out at 800MHz.

Broadcom chips tend to excel at web applications while falling behind slightly in generally processing and graphics performance, so we were eager to see how much better it is than the Ace 2's dual-core 800 MHz NovaThor chipset.

Single-threaded performance of the Ace 3 turned out just as expectedly towards the bottom of the pack due to the low clock speed. The Ace 3 does outperform some of the lesser Sony and Samsung offerings, however.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  166
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• LG Optimus G
  285
• HTC One mini
  293
• Samsung Galaxy Express
  346
• Sony Xperia M
  400
• Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
  409
• Sony Xperia L
  435
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  499
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  519
• Sony Xperia go
  543
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  554
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  578
• HTC Desire X
  639
• Sony Xperia E dual
  800
• Samsung Galaxy Young
  831

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4
  788
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  413
• Sony Xperia SP
  348
• HTC One mini
  320
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• Sony Xperia L
  191
• HTC One X+
  177
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175
• Sony Xperia M
  168.3
• HTC One X
  160
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  107.7
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  85
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  68

Geekbench 3 tests out the CPU as well as memory performance. Here the Ace 3 did not stack up well against the competition, but you have got to remember it runs against mostly flagship-grade devices.

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• Apple iPhone 5s
  2561
• LG Nexus 5
  2453
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• HTC One Max
  1899
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869
• LG Optimus G
  1623
• Meizu MX3
  1579
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1315
• LG Nexus 4
  1288
• HTC Butterfly
  1257
• Oppo R819
  1047
• HTC One mini
  887
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  564

AnTuTu and Quadrant are compound benchmarks, giving the CPU, GPU and memory a run. Here the Galaxy Ace 3 is able to gain back some lost ground, particularly in AnTuTu.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• HTC One
  22678
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• Oppo Find 5
  15167
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  14518
• HTC Butterfly
  12631
• HTC One mini
  11434
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  11203
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  10448
• Sony Xperia M
  9902
• Sony Xperia L
  9746
• Nokia Lumia 620
  9140
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  7408
• Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2
  6650

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  7153
• HTC One mini
  6048
• Sony Xperia V
  5816
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  5053
• Samsung Galaxy Express
  4998
• Sony Xperia L
  4279
• Sony Xperia M
  4147
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  3240
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  3152

The VideoCore IV GPU found on the Ace 3 is decidedly several steps behind most flagship graphics units, so we've decided to forego our usual GFXBench offscreen GPU benchmarks. Epic Citadel refused to run on the Ace 3, so we had to dig up some older Nenamark 2 benchmarks for comparison. Here the device scores better than most older smartphones in its class.

NenaMark 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Fame
  47.3
• Sony Xperia E dual
  27.7
• Samsung Galaxy Fame
  26.9
• HTC Sensation XE
  23.0
• Sony Xperia J
  19.6
• LG Optimus L7
  19.3
• Sony Xperia miro
  15.9
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  15.4
• HTC Explorer
  15.1
• Samsung Galaxy Y Duos
  13.2
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  12.9
• Samsung Galaxy Ace
  12.0

Finally, we move on to the web browsing benchmarks, which has been traditionally a strong point for Broadcom processors, particularly when it comes to HTML 5. The Ace 3 manages decent results, but nothing particularly impressive.

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  403
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  587
• Apple iPhone 5
  694
• Apple iPhone 5c
  704
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  750
• LG Nexus 5
  827
• Sony Xperia Z1
  845
• LG G2
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• Meizu MX3
  1085
• HTC One
  1174
• HTC One Max
  1295
• LG Optimus G
  1293
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  1337
• HTC One mini
  1375
• LG Nexus 4
  1379
• HTC Butterfly
  1397
• Oppo R819
  1423

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2314
• HTC One
  2262
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  2170
• HTC One mini
  2164
• Sony Xperia V
  1957
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  1902
• Sony Xperia L
  1809
• Sony Xperia M
  1642
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  1592
• HTC 8S
  1556
• Nokia Lumia 620
  1469
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1469
• Samsung Galaxy Express
  1154
• Sony Xperia E
  992
• Sony Xperia E dual
  975
• Samsung Galaxy Young
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  714

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia SP
  2497
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  2019
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Sony Xperia M
  1800
• Sony Xperia L
  1640
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  1572
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  1409
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1366
• Nexus 4
  1310
• Samsung Galaxy Fame
  1234
• Samsung Galaxy Young
  1072
• Sony Xperia E dual
  1065

Ultimately, the Galaxy Ace 3 leaves something to be desired in almost all areas, but it is a budget device after all. Navigating the interface does have its fair share of slowdowns, particularly when the 1GB of RAM starts to fill up, but it's nothing as bad as some of the real bottom-of-the-barrel droids.