HTC One Max vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 3: Heavy hitters

Benchmarks

This should be fairly straightforward - on paper the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 just has more of everything than the HTC One Max so it should score an easy victory.

The Note 3 we're testing is powered by a Snapdragon 800 chipset, which has four Krait 400 CPU cores clocked at 2.26GHz, 3GB of RAM and the new Adreno 330 GPU. The HTC One Max has to rely on older CPU and GPU configurations - quad-core Krait 300 @ 1.7GHz and Adreno 320 - and it has "only" 2GB of RAM.

The Galaxy Note 3 is indeed a beast in terms of CPU performance and it topped all three benchmarks we use - Benchmark Pi for single-threaded performance, Linpack and Geekbench 3 for multithreaded performance. The HTC One Max scores a little better than the HTC One, but that just brings it close to Galaxy S4 levels, the Note 3 is well out of reach.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  99
• LG G2
  99
• Sony Xperia Z1
  115
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  115
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  130
• HTC One Max
  131
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• HTC Butterfly S
  135
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  1081
• LG G2
  1054
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1034
• Sony Xperia Z1
  1004
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  818
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One Max
  723
• HTC Butterfly S
  669
• HTC One
  646
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5

Geekbench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2937
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2670
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2638
• Apple iPhone 5s
  2561
• LG G2
  2243
• HTC One
  1972
• HTC One Max
  1899
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1869

Integrated benchmarks Quadrant and AnTuTu also put the Galaxy Note 3 well ahead of the One Max. In the case of Quadrant, the Note 3 has almost double the One Max score. The One Max is on par with the One in both benchmarks, while the Note 3 beats its Galaxy S4 sibling by a comfortable margin.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1
  20388
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  20052
• LG G2
  19815
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  18177
• HTC Butterfly S
  13130
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One Max
  11914
• HTC One
  11746
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  11346
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Nexus 4
  4567

AnTuTu 4

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  31109
• Sony Xperia Z1
  30850
• LG G2
  30243
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  29185
• Samsung Galaxy S4
  27613
• HTC One
  26389
• HTC One Max
  26348
• LG Nexus 4
  17006

Both phablets have 1080p screens, so both GLBenchmark scores practically run at native resolution. In those two benchmarks, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 topped the charts and posted 70%-80% better framerates than the HTC One Max. The gap is less prominent in Epic Citadel (around 30%-40%) but surprisingly both phablets do worse than Sony's flagship Xperias and the GL G2.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  68
• Sony Xperia Z1
  60
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  60
• Apple iPhone 5s
  56
• LG G2
  54
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• HTC Butterfly S
  42
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  41
• HTC One Max
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  17
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17

GLBenchmark 2.7 T-Rex (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  26
• Sony Xperia Z1
  23
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  23
• Apple iPhone 5s
  23
• LG G2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  17.1
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  17.1
• HTC Butterfly S
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• HTC One Max
  14
• Google Nexus 10
  13.9
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  6.3
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z1
  54.9
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  54.9
• LG G2
  51
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  47.7
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  37.2
• HTC One
  35.6
• HTC One Max
  34.9
• HTC Butterfly
  29.6

When it comes to web browsing benchmarks, the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is not the ultimate champion (the Apple iPhone 5s tops it), but both SunSpider (JavaScript performance) and BrowserMark 2 (HTML5 speed) give the Note 3 a massive advantage. Vellamo was more conservative and puts the HTC One Max pretty close to the Note 3.

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
• Sony Xperia Z1
  845
• LG G2
  908
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  1046
• HTC One
  1174
• HTC One Max
  1295
• LG Nexus 4
  1379

BrowserMark 2

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5s
  3549
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3041
• Apple iPhone 5
  2825
• Apple iPhone 5c
  2799
• LG G2
  2718
• LG Optimus G
  2555
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2438
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2419
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2398
• HTC Butterfly S
  2378
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  2338
• HTC One
  2262
• HTC One Max
  2243
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1801
• Nexus 4
  1794
• Nokia Lumia 920
  1774
• Google Nexus 10
  1773
• HTC Butterfly
  1475

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  2944
• LG G2
  2908
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2904
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  2853
• HTC Butterfly S
  2592
• HTC One Max
  2523
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• HTC One mini
  2252
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  1936
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Nexus 4
  1310

Winner: Samsung Galaxy Note 3. A newer chipset and more RAM make this a very one-sided fight.

HTC did not update the processing power compared to the HTC One, so the One Max lags behind even the Galaxy S4.