iPhone 6s vs. Galaxy S6 vs. Xperia Z5: Monster Brawl

Performance

Cross-platform benchmarking is difficult, but we selected benchmarks that are available on both platforms. Even so, don't take the numbers at face value but look at the practical implications behind them.

For example, the Samsung Galaxy S6 trumps the other two in raw CPU performance. Both it and the Xperia have eight cores, but the more advanced manufacturing process allows the Exynos chipsets to reach higher clock speeds.

Also, the iPhone 6s may only have two cores, but they are Twister cores that have stunning performance individually so just the two of them are enough for a competitive multithreading performance.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  5215
• Apple iPhone 6s
  4427
• Sony Xperia Z5
  4017

AnTuTu 5 measuring the full system performance also gives the Galaxy S6 the lead, but this is a deceptively simple measurement.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  69396
• Apple iPhone 6s
  59074
• Sony Xperia Z5
  50611

For certain tasks, like gaming, iPhone's PowerVR GT7600 GPU offers developers much more horsepower to work with. This advantage is stretched further when you take into account the lower native resolution of the 6s screen.

The Mali-T760 and Adreno 430 are on equal footing, which is actually bad for the Galaxy as it has to render at QHD instead of 1080p. Some games will choose to render at a lower resolution and upscale to match the screen, which will even things out. Samsung released a tool to let users do just that recently.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  39.5
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  24
• Sony Xperia Z5
  24

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  53.6
• Sony Xperia Z5
  25
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  14

iPhone's few but powerful cores are well-suited for single-threaded tasks like JavaScript where they help Apple's highly optimized engine trounce the competition. It's more than twice as fast as the Galaxy here, which itself leads the Xperia by a decent margin.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 6s
  1737
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  4154
• Sony Xperia Z5
  5635

Winner: Apple iPhone 6s. Apple continues to improve their chipsets each year and the tight integration between hardware, product design and software allow it to outpace Androids. Don't use core count as a measurement of performance.

Runner-up: Samsung Galaxy S6. Qualcomm's fumble was Samsung Semiconductor's time to shine. And it does - the Exynos chipset in the S6 is still the best chipset available to Android phones. The GPU isn't ready for QHD gaming, but will do fine if you settle for 1080p.

While Apple and Samsung both have their own chipsets to fall back on, Sony is tied to Qualcomm and the Snapdragon 810 isn't the best. The Adreno GPU is solid, it's the CPU side that lets things down.