Motorola Moto X hands-on: First look

Synthetic benchmarks

The Moto X uses the custom X8 chipset that Motorola used in the DROID Maxx, Ultra and Mini. It's a Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset with two Krait cores at 1.7GHz, 2GB RAM and Adreno 320GPU, plus some extra hardware to handle some proprietary features.

Single-core performance as measured by benchmarks is about what you can expect – it's the same as the Sony Xperia SP (which uses the same chipset) and slightly slower than Snapdragon 600-powered smartphones at the same clockspeed.

Multi-threaded performance is a little over a half of the Snapdragon 600 performance, according to Linpack or about the same, according to Geekbench 2 (we're willing to side with Linpack on this one).

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  132
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  132
• LG Optimus G Pro
  147
• HTC One
  151
• Sony Xperia SP
  184
• Motorola Moto X
  192
• Sony Xperia Z
  264
• HTC Butterfly
  266
• Oppo Find 5
  267
• HTC One X+
  280
• 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
• Nexus 4
  431

Linpack

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  791
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  788
• LG Optimus G Pro
  743
• HTC One
  646
• Sony Xperia Z
  630
• HTC Butterfly
  624
• LG Optimus G
  608
• Oppo Find 5
  593
• Motorola Moto X
  391
• Sony Xperia SP
  348
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  214.3
• Nexus 4
  213.5
• Meizu MX 4-core
  189.1
• HTC One X+
  177.7
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  175.5
• HTC One X
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  3324
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  3227
• LG Optimus G Pro
  3040
• HTC One
  2708
• Sony Xperia Z
  2173
• Motorola Moto X
  2123
• Sony Xperia SP
  2105
• HTC Butterfly
  2143
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• iPhone 5
  1601

However, compound benchmarks like AnTuTu and Quadrant also report blazing fast performance, close to quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipsets and very close to even Snapdragon 600 chipsets.

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  26275
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  24716
• HTC One
  22678
• Sony Xperia Z
  20794
• LG Optimus G Pro
  20056
• HTC Butterfly
  19513
• Motorola Moto X
  19031
• Sony Xperia SP
  15874
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  15547
• Oppo Find 5
  15167

Quadrant

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  12446
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  12376
• LG Optimus G Pro
  12105
• HTC One
  11746
• Motorola Moto X
  9018
• Sony Xperia Z
  8075
• Sony Xperia SP
  7897
• HTC One X+
  7632
• LG Optimus G
  7439
• Oppo Find 5
  7111
• HTC One X
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  5916
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5450
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• Nexus 4
  4567

3D performance is a strong suit for the Moto X – it has a quad-core Adreno 320 GPU, same as the current 1080p flagships and it only has to push 720p resolution to the screen. 1080p offscreen performance is good too, so 720p games can push the quality even higher without degrading the performance too much.

GLBenchmark 2.5 Egypt (1080p off-screen)

Higher is better

• Motorola Moto X
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  43
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  41
• HTC One
  37
• Oppo Find 5
  32
• Google Nexus 4
  32
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Sony Xperia Z
  31
• Sony Xperia ZL
  31
• Sony Xperia SP
  31
• Apple iPhone 5
  30
• LG Optimus G Pro
  30
• LG Optimus G
  21
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  17
• HTC One X
  11

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

Higher is better

• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4
  17.1
• Apple iPad 4
  16.8
• Motorola Moto X
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 Active
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE
  15
• HTC One GPE
  13.9
• LG Optimus G
  13.9
• Sony Xperia Z
  13.5
• Sony Xperia Tablet Z
  13
• Sony Xperia ZR
  13
• Sony Xperia ZL
  12.8
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  4.9

Epic Citadel

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  59.8
• Motorola Moto X
  59.6
• Sony Xperia SP
  58.0
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  57.1
• HTC One
  56.4
• Sony Xperia Z
  55.6
• LG Optimus G Pro
  54.2
• Nexus 4
  53.9
• Asus Padfone 2
  53.4
• LG Optimus G
  52.6
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  41.3
• Oppo Find 5
  38.6

Web browser performance turned out excellent too. JavaScript performance is about average (when compared against 2013 flagships), but overall browsing performance is top notch (helped in part by the sub-1080p resolution).

SunSpider

Lower is better

• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  804
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  810
• Samsung Ativ S
  891
• Apple iPhone 5
  915
• Nokia Lumia 920
  910
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  972
• HTC One X+
  1001
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1011
• Motorola Moto X
  1050
• Motorola RAZR i XT890
  1059
• Sony Xperia SP
  1116
• HTC One
  1124
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1192
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1312
• Sony Xperia Z
  1336
• LG Optimus G
  1353
• HTC Butterfly
  1433
• Nexus 4
  1971
• Oppo Find 5
  2045

Vellamo

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia SP
  2497
• Motorola Moto X
  2446
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2418
• HTC One
  2382
• Sony Xperia Z
  2189
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2078
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (S600)
  2060
• Samsung Galaxy S4 (Octa)
  2056
• HTC Butterfly
  1866
• Oppo Find 5
  1658
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1641
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1568
• LG Optimus G
  1522
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1468
• Nexus 4
  1310