Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra goes up against the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max in a speed test

25 February 2023
Samsung's latest and greatest battles against Apple's latest and greatest in this speed test.

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  • 26 Feb 2023

Apple is always the best

    For me, the better one of these is "The Mario Test".
    You pick the most complex console (Nintendo Wii), pick the most optimised emulator (Dolphin), with the highest graphical fidelity (Mario Galaxy 2), you raise the internal resolution (by x4).

    You start the test in a 25'C Room at STP, with the test goes from the phone at 100% charge, without the Battery Saver Mode, and until it ends. In the background, you record the performance (fps) during the process. This test is heavy on the CPU, the GPU, and relies on decent memory. It doesn't test the Storage or Connection Speeds, but then neither do most benchmarks.

    This will show you the maximum performance at the start, the time to thermal throttling, the throttling drop in performance, the device temperature, the drain in power, and the total battery life. You can then take the Average Performance (fps) and divide by Average Battery Drain (mW) to get an Efficiency Score. Or even tally the Total Frames Produced divided by Total Battery Life. It is relatively stable test, it has clear goals, and you can normalise for the display by dimming it low and running the emulation via Video-Out. You can even normalise for the test by having a pre-configured button input, so they all run/jump/spin at the same times. And it's not-synthetic, you really are doing something tangible just in a controlled manner and measuring it.

      These "speed tests" aren't very indicative of real-world use.
      Sure PhoneBuff does it best by using a robot, so there's no human variability involved.
      And synthetic benchmarks don't tell you the full story either.
      One of the more balanced or useful metrics was "Speedtest G" which ran an unsigned program that had to finish a task start to finish which stressed the CPU, Memory, and GPU. However, it's basically been discontinued.

      Another factor is thermal throttling. And then there's also Battery drain.

      The best "benchmark" is to run many things, have lots of data points, and bring them together. But that's slow, tedious, and overwhelming. And it could lead to incorrect results due to certain things skewing the results. Such as a bad software update, which later gets rolled back, there's no way to account for that.

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        • SXw
        • 26 Feb 2023

        PhonePowerhouse, 26 Feb 2023The test is not fair as the iPhone is put through testing s... moreWhat?

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          • SXw
          • 26 Feb 2023

          Narazumono, 25 Feb 2023Androids are years behind iPhones in terms of speed I exp... morePlease, don't lie.

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            • Anonymous
            • HsJ
            • 26 Feb 2023

            PhonePowerhouse, 26 Feb 2023The test is not fair as the iPhone is put through testing s... moreBut these aren't native Samsung apps either

              The test is not fair as the iPhone is put through testing some unoptimized 3rd party apps for example for video export, Microsoft apps, Google apps. This test should involve native Apple apps to see the true power and speed of the iPhone

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                • swaraj
                • Hkt
                • 26 Feb 2023

                Anonymous, 26 Feb 2023The 1 second advantage isn't relevant in everyday life.1 sec advantage works in my pull out game though

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                  • Anonymous
                  • 7@u
                  • 26 Feb 2023

                  Anonymous, 26 Feb 2023The 1 second advantage isn't relevant in everyday life.Said this years ago when Apple could open texts or calculator apps 1 second faster then Android devices lol

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                    • Anonymous
                    • rKg
                    • 26 Feb 2023

                    The 1 second advantage isn't relevant in everyday life.

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                      • Anonymous
                      • HkX
                      • 26 Feb 2023

                      KekYapmma, 25 Feb 2023If s23 won(which is one of the worst 8gen2 phones for perfo... moreI don't think Samsung is one of the writer worst for performance. It performs better than OnePlus 11.

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                        • pfC
                        • 26 Feb 2023

                        Propov, 26 Feb 2023Not only money. When you drive a couple of milliseconds a... moreYes but when you use your phone are you going at 100km/h ? What's the point of your comment ???

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                          • Maria
                          • X{g
                          • 26 Feb 2023

                          Propov, 26 Feb 2023Not only money. When you drive a couple of milliseconds a... moreI can't agree more, Time is money and distance.

                            Berserker, 25 Feb 2023Wrong bro. Time is money and a couple of those millisecond... moreNot only money. When you drive a couple of milliseconds are life. With 100kmh 1 second is more than 25 meters.

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                              • Anonymous
                              • XR2
                              • 26 Feb 2023

                              Iphone won

                                KekYapmma, 25 Feb 2023If s23 won(which is one of the worst 8gen2 phones for perfo... moreAnd how much phones are now on the market with SD 8.2.? Right now and on global market? And how many of them are powerful than S23?

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                                  • AnonD-731363
                                  • Lfw
                                  • 26 Feb 2023

                                  This makes no sense if Nubia red magic 8 pro for half price outruns both of them like nothing.
                                  Its only proves which phone is way better and the price is not everything.

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                                    • Nathan
                                    • I@a
                                    • 26 Feb 2023

                                    Anonymous, 25 Feb 2023The SoC was pretty much the only thing that Apple was ahead. Was.Is this though antutu benchmark?

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                                      • Kabbi
                                      • mGk
                                      • 26 Feb 2023

                                      Narazumono, 25 Feb 2023Androids are years behind iPhones in terms of speed I exp... moreYou are so wrong. If u mean previous versions of one ui then I agree. But zenfone, xiaomi, oneplus, vivo and so on doesn't lag. But the one ui 5.1 on my s23 is butterly smooth. To say android is years behind is absurd

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                                        • nGG
                                        • 26 Feb 2023

                                        Anonymous, 25 Feb 2023Just milliseconds? Man come on. Pick one you like. Android ... moreI agree, except for me it’s about whatever’s out at the time my contract is iup, and also which one works best with my Apple Watch haha