LG V20 Review: Android Nougat-Infused And Feature-Rich

Name: LG V20
Brand: LG

by Dave Altavilla — Friday, October 07, 2016, 11:28 AM EDT

LG V20 GFXBench, 3DMark & BasemarkX Performance

Page 6: LG V20 GFXBench, 3DMark & BasemarkX Performance

Next up, we have GFXBench, which has been one of our standard mobile graphics performance benchmarks for quite a while now. In order to ensure v-sync and resolution are not limiting factors, we are comparing Offscreen test results here.

3D Graphics Benchmarks: 3DMark, Basemark X & GFX Bench

Pushing The Pixels

Straight-up, GFXBench says the LG V20 is top dog when it comes to 3D graphics and gaming performance, though its tied with the Moto Z brothers for that spot. Apparently, Android Nougat and LG's software setup are well-optimized and tuned for its Snapdragon 820 SoC with Adreno 530 GPU.

We also ran with Futuremark's 3DMark benchmark, 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.

3DMark Ice Storm offers some interesting data to pour through. First, the LG V20, in terms of raw game FPS, offers more middling performance among the top tier phones in this test (FPS graph). It's not far off the mark, but in the middle of the pack of recent flagships from Samsung, Motorola and others. However, in the overall test, the LG V20 takes a much higher slotting, just behind the Moto Zs and too hot to handle Galaxy Note 7, largely attributed to the V20's superior Physics performance score.

We also decided to toss in Basemark X, which is another cross-platform graphics benchmark that employs a real mobile game engine called Unity.

More of the same here for the LG V20. Whatever mojo Motorola has going on with the Moto Z's we're not sure, but the LG V20 is nip-and-tuck behind them. The good news is, with the LG V20, you get more carrier choice, rather than being relegated to just Verizon, at least in the case of the Moto Z Force Droid.