iPhone 6 Crushes Galaxy S6 As Apple Fightback Begins

Everyone loves the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Samsung’s radically redesigned flagship smartphones have been met with rapturous reviews and the general proclamation that the company is back after a dismal 2014. But Apple AAPL +0.85% might be about to reset the narrative…


A detailed report
on AppleInsider has found graphics performance on the Galaxy S6 to fall
not only far behind the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, but in some cases
even behind the iPhone 5S. It’s a landslide victory.


The tests use Kishonti Informatics’ respected GFXBench
(v3.0.2) and use OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 benchmarks. The benchmark uses
game-mimicking graphics to attain their results and is often seen as one
of the more reliable tests for indication of real world performance.

Left to right: Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge and iPhone 6 (proportional comparison) – credit Gordon Kelly

Read more – iPhone 6 Vs Galaxy S6 And Galaxy S6 Edge: Samsung Gatecrashes Apple


Most notably AppleInsider claims that “In terms of fps [frames per
second], the latest benchmarks show that Samsung’s new ‘Exynos 7’
powered Galaxy S6 drops down to 15 fps—just 78 percent of the frame rate
of iPhone 6 Plus—in the same test [OpenGL ES 3.0 3D].”

GFXBench results – image credit AppleInsider

But hang on a minute, didn’t Samsung just score a major performance win over Apple less than one month ago? Yes, but with a vital caveat…


Chipset Vs Smartphone


What the tests at the beginning of March found were that Samsung’s
new Exynos 7420 chipset, which is at the heart of both the Galaxy S6 and
Galaxy S6 Edge, hammered the Apple A8 which is inside the iPhone 6 and
iPhone 6 Plus.


Read more – Galaxy S6 vs Galaxy S6 Edge: The Differences Between The New Samsung Smartphones


The problem? That was just a test of the chipset, not the chipset
inside the phone. So what is AppleInsider pinning the massive turnaround
on? Screen resolution.

Galaxy S6 (front) vs Galaxy S6 Edge with its rounded display – image credit Jay McGregor

In a nutshell: it takes a vastly greater overhead to drive the QHD
(2560 x 1440) panels inside both new Samsung phones. The panels may be
more power efficient, but that’s separate to the demand they place on
other components.


Then again isn’t all this just an Apple dedicated site pushing an agenda? Possible, but I don’t think so.


Previously AppleInsider discovered
the iPhone 6 Plus’ bump to a 1080p resolution led to dramatically less
graphics performance than the 750p iPhone 6. In fact the iPhone 6 Plus
was actually beaten in some graphics tests by the 640p iPhone 5S. Hardly
a winning pro-Apple result and one that opens up the old argument about
pros Vs cons in smartphone display resolutions.


After all why spend all that time coming up with a faster chipset if
you’re just going to cripple it with a 2560 x 1440 pixel (577 PPI)
display? The iPhone 6 has 3x less pixels to drive which gives it an
enormous advantage. It’s an unfair fight Samsung couldn’t win, so why
give the Galaxy S6 such ridiculous overhead in the first place? This
isn’t a pound-for-pound competition.