LG Optimus G v Samsung Galaxy S III: Beast wars

Synthetic benchmarks

We keep calling the Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset a monster, but how fast is it really? The Exynos 4 Quad chipset was the fastest on the market just five months ago, so how big a difference can a generation in CPU architectures make?

Well, we turn to synthetic benchmarks to answer these questions. The Samsung Galaxy S III does have the advantage of running Jelly Bean (which offers a faster web browser and other optimizations, but consumes more GPU power). The LG Optimus G has an extra disadvantage (besides the older OS) in that the S4 Pro chipset is still new and the drivers for it aren't fully mature yet.

BenchmarkPi and Linpack show that the Krait cores have an advantage in both single and multi-threaded performance. They are a special case as they measure raw CPU power.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• LG Optimus G
  285
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  305
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  359
• Meizu MX 4-core
  362

Linpack

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  608
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Meizu MX 4-core
  189.1
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

Geekbench, AnTuTu and Quadrant try to give compound scores testing CPU, RAM, GPU and I/O. Geekbench and AnTuTu give the win to the Galaxy S III, while Quadrant prefers the Optimus G (it should be noted that the Quadrant benchmark is made by Qualcomm). We suspect the Optimus G performance will improve as the software matures, but at the moment, it's not a decisive victory.

Geekbench

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2000
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1748
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  1634
• Apple iPhone 5
  1601

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  13562
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  12288
• Meizu MX 4-core
  11820
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  11735
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  11633
• LG Optimus G
  11226

Quadrant

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  7439
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5375
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  4814

Let's turn to GLBenchmark and see what those GPUs can do. NenaMark 2 can't stress them enough, so they run into the 60fps software-imposed limit.. GLBenchmark was tested using the offscreen mode, which sidesteps software fps limits and differences in hardware screen resolution.

Anyway, going up to 1080p showed a clear difference. The Adreno 320 in the LG Optimus G offered nearly double the framerate (and it's a playable framerate too) compared to the Mali-400 in the Samsung Galaxy S III. Sure, neither phone has a 1080p screen, but this shows that the Optimus will offer more playable framerates with games are heavier than GLBenchmark.

GLBenchmark 2.1 Egypt (720p offscreen)

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  113
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  105
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  99
• Meizu MX 4-core
  80
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  64
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  61

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  29
• Apple iPhone 5
  27
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  9

Web browsing proved to be the Achilles heel of the LG Optimus G. It loses on all three benchmarks we ran, but more worryingly, it lost two rounds to the Tegra 3-powered Optimus 4X HD (which also runs ICS).

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1312
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1446
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  1468

BrowserMark

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 5
  189937
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  185034
• Meizu MX 4-core
  158404
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  157176
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  149038
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  147582
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  140270
• LG Optimus G
  118126

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1468

See what we mean about software maturity? The LG Optimus G has the hardware to come out the undisputed winner in this chapter, but it only managed to comprehensively outdo its rival in graphics power and got tripped up by software elsewhere. Qualcomm's Mobile Developer Platform with Snapdragon S4 Pro (CPUs clocked at 1.5GHz) benchmarked better than what we're seeing from the Optimus G.