Samsung Galaxy Note 8 Review: A More Powerful, Premium And Refined Flagship

Name: Samsung Galaxy Note8
Brand: Samsung

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, September 19, 2017, 12:15 PM EDT

Next we'll test the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 with GFXBench, which has been one of our standard mobile graphics performance benchmarks for quite a while now. In order to ensure display refresh (v-sync) and resolution are not limiting factors, we are comparing off-screen test results here. GFXBench tests OpenGL ES graphics workloads; we're specifically testing GLES 2.0 and 3.0 rendering performance in the following two benchmark modules.

3D Graphics Benchmarks: 3DMark & GFX Bench

Pushing The Pixels

The Note 8 did very well here. It put up the best score we've seen to date in the T-Rex benchmark and tied for the lead in the Manhattan test.

We also ran Futuremark's 3DMark, which has been a staple 3D graphics benchmark at HotHardware across all mobile and desktop platforms for many years. In this case we were running 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited, which is targeted for mobile devices and also runs at 720p in offscreen mode, so as to take display resolution out of the equation. This test and its 3D graphics engine is also based on the Open GL ES 2.0 API.

The Galaxy Note 8 also performed also very well in 3DMark Ice Storm. If you look specifically at the individual test results, you'll see that it essentially traded victories with the Moto Z2 Force and is among the fastest Android-based smartphones on the market.

Futuremark 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Benchmark

3DMark Sling Shot is a new benchmark module that's been added to the 3DMark mobile suite, so we have fewer results in our database to share, though we do have a few top-shelf Android phones, the iPhone 7, and Samsung's previous-gen Galaxy S7 in the mix. Sling Shot is a much more advanced OpenGL ES 3.1 and Metal API-based test that employs some advanced rendering techniques like volumetric lighting and particle illumination. In this test we again run the off-screen mode, so as to remove display resolution differences from the equation and thus can compare cross-platform results more reliably.

In the newer 3DMark Sling Shot benchmark, the Galaxy Note 8 takes the lead and bests all of the other phones we've tested. As it stands today, the Snapdragon 835 with Adreno 540 graphics is the most powerful SoC employed in Android-based smartphones, so it's no surprise to see the Note 8 performing as well as it does.

Tags: Samsung, Android, Mobile, smartphone, Galaxy, galaxy note 8, note 8, note8

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com