Apple vs Samsung/Android: A New Benchmark Scandal
A new “Apple vs Samsung/Andorid” scandal is brewing up on tech social media, with some people speaking out about the new Geekbench 6 results after the S23+ update and the comparison before and after the iPhone 14 Pro update. Android was a fiasco, with Apple seemingly ‘blooming with laughter’.
What is Geekbench?
For the record, Geekbench is one of the most popular simulation-based programmes/apps for benchmarking/measuring the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) of laptops, tablets, and phones. It measures processor’s power for “everything from checking your email to taking a picture to playing music, or all of it at once”, and also tests your phone’s gaming abilities, image processing, and video editing power.
What is Different in Geekbench 6?
Apart from Machine Learning and AI, Geekbench 6 is now supposed to more accurately and extensively test: larger datasets, AI object detection, applying filters to photos, background blur, photos with a higher megapixel count, larger maps, larger PDFs files, new HTML workloads, navigation, ray tracing, etc.
More importantly, though, Geekbench 6 seems to focus on taking better advantage of the GPUs across different platforms (Android, iPhone), while the multi-core CPU score should better reflect how newer chips make use of both high-speed and efficiency cores/horsepower to complete different tasks.
Exclusive Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Chip for Galaxy S23 Ultra Now “30% Slower” Than the iPhone 14 Pro’s A16 Bionic; Samsung Users Disagree
Comparing Geekbench 5 (the old test) to Geekbench 6 (the new test), shows the iPhone 14 Pro’s performance lead has jumped from roughly 12% to more than double, or 28%.
Galaxy S23 Ultra – 1,600 (single-core), 5,000 (multi-core)
iPhone 14 Pro – 1,900 (single-core), 5,500 (multi-core)
Geekbench 6 scores (rounded up)
Galaxy S23 Ultra – 1,900 (single-core), 5,100 (multi-core), 6% higher than Geekbench 5
iPhone 14 Pro – 2,500 (single-core score), 6,500 (multi-core score), 21% higher than Geekbench 5
Although a difference of 28% now makes the iPhone 14 Pro seem much faster on paper, the difference in performance gains between the 14 Pro and S23 Ultra is “just” 15% (as shown above). This jump is almost in line with the iPhone’s Geekbench 5 lead, which was about 12%.
Is My Galaxy S23 Ultra Really 30% Slower Than My iPhone 14 Pro? Real-World Use Shows the Answer is Somewhat… Complicated
But is it slower… for real? As someone who’s been using both the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro for some time now (also, the Pixel 7 Pro), would I say the Geekbench 6 results translate into real-world use, or are they… “rigged”?
Launching apps, the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro perform quite similarly; if anything, the S23 Ultra is often faster to open day-to-day apps like Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, etc. RAM management comes with a higher ceiling on the Galaxy, which not only has twice the amount of RAM (my unit comes with 12GB), but has faster LPDDR5x RAM, which can also swap storage for more RAM; all of this results in more apps staying open in the background on the S23 Ultra – mostly noticeable when you push the phones very hard (opening multiple games amongst other apps).
When using certain apps is where the iPhone 14 Pro sometimes takes the lead over the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Although the Galaxy S23 Ultra might open Instagram a second faster, the iPhone 14 Pro is noticeably faster when it comes to the more advanced apps, such as photo editing, video editing, and gaming. But, overall, the difference in real-world performance between the two phones is not as drastic as the Geekbench 6 results suggest.
