Sony Xperia X review: Rated X

Performance

We already had a piece on chipsets and performance of the Sony Xperia X in our blog, but now we'll go into more detail.

The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 650 chipset. This means you get the new Cortex-A72 cores - better, faster than the A57 they replace - but only two of them. They are paired with four Cortex-A53's so the chipset is a replacement of the Snapdragon 808 (2x A57 + 4X A53). That said, this chipset is built on the older 28nm process while the Snapdragon 808 was built using the 20nm process.

Despite this fact, in multi-core CPU speed, the Xperia X does better than the LG Nexus 5X with S808, and it even matches the Xperia Z5, which uses an S810 chipset.

GeekBench 3 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Huawei P9
  6558
• Xiaomi Mi 5
  5358
• Sony Xperia Z5
  4017
• Sony Xperia X
  3796
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  3554
• LG Nexus 5X
  3527
• HTC One A9
  3209
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  3061

AnTuTu 6 and Basemark OS II 2.0 have a positive view of the performance. They place it well ahead of the HTC One A9 and the Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016), premium mid-rangers that compete for a similar spot as the Xperia X. It's not a flagship but it tops the Xperia Z5.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  131758
• Huawei P9
  98069
• Sony Xperia X
  77537
• HTC One A9
  60324
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  35689

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  2180
• Huawei P9
  2068
• Sony Xperia X
  1714
• LG Nexus 5X
  1591
• Sony Xperia Z5
  1482
• HTC One A9
  944
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  860
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  833

The chipset also brings a new GPU - Adreno 510. It's a new generation graphics chip, and it only has to drive a 1080p screen. It's not as fast as the Snapdragon 810 graphics, but it does close to double the frames per second of its immediate competitors.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  45
• Sony Xperia Z5
  24
• Huawei P9
  18
• LG Nexus 5X
  16
• Sony Xperia X
  14
• Huawei Honor 7
  9.2
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  8.4
• HTC One A9
  6.4
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  5.7

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  43
• Sony Xperia Z5
  25
• Huawei P9
  19
• LG Nexus 5X
  17
• Sony Xperia X
  15
• Huawei Honor 7
  9.3
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  8.7
• HTC One A9
  6.7
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  5.7

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  33110
• Sony Xperia Z5
  23923
• Huawei P9
  16942
• LG Nexus 5X
  16609
• Sony Xperia X
  15087
• Huawei Honor 7
  9377
• Sony Xperia M5 Dual
  7780
• HTC One A9
  6617
• Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)
  4947

Basemark X (medium)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  35292
• Huawei P9
  29583
• Sony Xperia X
  24687
• HTC One A9
  12250

The Adreno 510 supports the latest developments in mobile 3D graphics, so we ran OpenGL ES 3.1 benchmarks as well.

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Mi 5
  580
• Huawei P9
  341
• LG Nexus 5X
  306
• Sony Xperia X
  251
• HTC One A9
  132

While we would have appreciated the Snapdragon 652 (it has two extra A72 cores), the 650 offers satisfactory performance for a premium midranger. If you're after more bang for the buck, however, the price tag of the X will send you looking elsewhere.