Quad-core shootout: Four of a kind

Synthetic benchmarks

Update, September 12: We updated the HTC One X to the latest available firmware version (based on Android 4.0.4) and re-ran the benchmarks. The text for the whole synthetic benchmarks chapter has been updated to reflect this - the One X saw a major performance increase after the update, in the three key areas (CPU, GPU, web browser).

The LG Optimus 4X HD was also updated to the latest available firmware version, but its benchmark scores did not change.

More cores, more power the mantra goes - and with four CPU cores, these are the most powerful phones on the market right now. Things should be pretty close though - we're actually comparing only two different chipsets.

The Samsung Galaxy S III and the Meizu MX 4-core both use a quad-core Exynos chipsets with their processors clocked at 1.4GHz. The HTC One X and the LG Optimus 4X HD use NVIDIA's Tegra 3 - their four CPU cores are going a bit faster at 1.5GHz.

Speaking of cores, they are all Cortex-A9 cores, so they should be on pretty equal footing (except for a small clock advantage for the Tegra 3 camp). The GPUs are different though - Exynos uses Mali-400MP, while Tegra relies on NVIDIA's own mobile GeForce GPU. We should also note that the Meizu MX 4-core screen has a 640 x 960, while the other three have 720p screens (50% more pixels to push).

And then there's plenty that comes down to software - we've seen phones with identical chipsets perform quite differently. We tried as much as possible to put all the phones on equal-footing - they all run the latest Android 4.0 ICS skinned by their respective manufacturers and we're using Chrome for the browser tests (as it's available on all devices and gives faster than the stock browser and probably the future of browsing on Android).

CPU benchmarks

We start off with the processor benchmarking. The Meizu MX 4-Core emerges as the leader here, with the highest Linpack result, highest overall and CPU scores in AnTuTu, though it posted the slowest time in Benchmark Pi and Quadrant score wasn't impressive (though this benchmark tests more than the CPU).

The margins are pretty thin, but the HTC One X comes in second after the update - it won the Benchmark Pi race, aced Quadrant and AnTuTu's RAM test. Performance in Linpack got quite close to the Exynos-packing phones.

The LG Optimus 4X HD and the Galaxy S III seem closely matched - they posted pretty much the same time in Benchmark Pi, but the Galaxy S III has a wide lead in Linpack, while the Optimus 4X gets better CPU and RAM scores in AnTuTu. Quadrant would give the victory to Galaxy S III, but only by a small margin.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  344
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Meizu MX 4-core
  362

Linpack

Higher is better

• Meizu MX 4-core
  189.1
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  177.1
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

AnTuTu

Higher is better

• Meizu MX 4-core
  11820
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  11735
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  11633
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  10767

AnTuTu - CPU

Higher is better

• Meizu MX 4-core
  7179
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  6951
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  6619
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  6199

AnTuTu - RAM

Higher is better

• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  2570
• Meizu MX 4-core
  2476
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  2432
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  2154

Quadrant

Higher is better

• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  5952
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5365
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  4814