OnePlus 5 vs. iPhone 7 Plus vs. Samsung Galaxy S8: Flagships unfazed

Synthetic benchmarks

The OnePlus 5 is powered by the Snapdragon 835 chipset - the go-to solution for this year's Android flagships. Qualcomm's latest and greatest ticks in some versions of the Galaxy S8 too, while other S8s employ the in-house Exynos 8895 - both state-of-the-art 10nm chips. The iPhone 7 Plus runs on Apple's A10 Fusion chipset manufactured by TSMC on a 16nm process.

The OnePlus 5 has heaps of RAM at its disposal - we tested the 8GB version, but even the base model with 6GB has more of it than the Galaxy S8 (4GB) and the iPhone 7 Plus (3GB).

The CPU of the Snapdragon 835 is made up of two clusters of Kryo 280 cores, four each, clocked at up to 2.45GHz (2.35GHz on the S8) and 1.9GHz respectively. The Exynos 8895 relies on a similar configuration, its power-efficient cluster consisting of four Cortex-A53 cores, and four custom cores for performance applications. The A10's CPU is a quad-core design, only two of the cores are reserved for the OS, while the other two are available for apps to make use of - those are clocked at up to 2.34GHz.

It's worth pointing out that the OnePlus 5 behaves in a somewhat unfair way when it detects a benchmark app - it locks the power-efficient cluster of its CPU at max frequency (1.9GHz), allowing the phone to score marginally better in benchmarks. Typically, this cluster may throttle down under load to keep temperature in check. It's not strictly cheating, though it is a little bit cheating.

The iPhone 7 Plus' superiority in single-core applications is undeniable. One Hurricane core outperforms a Kryo or a Mongoose (or whatever Samsung calls them these days) by 70-80%. With all hands on deck (read multi-core CPU testing), the octa-cores pull ahead, with the Exynos' CPU typically beating the Snapdragon's when you compare Galaxies. The OnePlus 5 has the upper hand in GeekBench 4, though v.4.1 puts the E8895 Galaxy in top spot.

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  3473
• OnePlus 5
  2031
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  1945
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  1915

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  6404
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  6175
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  6106
• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  5664

GeekBench 4.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S8
  1991
• OnePlus 5
  1932
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  1832

GeekBench 4.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S8
  6656
• OnePlus 5
  6604
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  6301

Looking past raw CPU performance, we move to Basemark OS II 2.0 which tries to put a numerical value on overall performance. While cross-platform considerations may apply, the iPhone 7 Plus is the champ here with a 5% lead ahead of the OnePlus 5. Technically, this isn't on the list of benchmarks that the OP5 is known to manipulate, yet it's comfortably ahead of either Galaxy - we reckon it's the RAM having its say.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  3796
• OnePlus 5
  3601
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  3376
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  3319

The OnePlus 5 lead in Antutu is, however, subject to question. Is 180K so much better that 168K to warrant all the bad publicity? We think not. In any case, all three phones (4, if you count both S8 versions) post top figures in Antutu, as expected.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  180331
• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  174987
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  174435
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  168133

GFXBench is one of those benchmarks where the OP5 supposedly does its thing, but its results aren't dramatically better than your average Galaxy S8 (S835) in offscreen testing, so we'll give it a pass. What is better is the OP5's fps numbers in onscreen versions of the tests - its FullHD resolution gives it an advantage over the QHD Galaxies. The iPhone 7 Plus puts out a comparable performance to the OP5.

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  41
• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  39
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  39
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  36

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  42
• OnePlus 5
  40
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  23
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  18

GFX 3.1 Car scene (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S8
  25
• OnePlus 5
  24
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  23

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 5
  24
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  13
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  12

Platform caveats notwithstanding, the iPhone 7 Plus is hard to compete with in Basemark ES 3.1/Metal benchmarks. The workload is the same, Basemark, states, and the iPhone 7 Plus is still unmatched, 10 months into its existence. The Exynos Galaxy S8 is substantially faster than the S835 one here, and the OP5 is as a little further behind that.

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  1517
• Samsung Galaxy S8
  1189
• Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SD 835)
  817
• OnePlus 5
  796

Winner: Apple iPhone 7 Plus. The iPhone wins this as usual, thanks to superior graphics and otherworldly single-core CPU performance. The OP5 and Galaxy S8 are by no means underpowered though, and we've come to a point to question what more we can ask for.