Samsung Galaxy S5 Review


Graphics and Gaming Performance

GFXBench has been one of our standard graphics performance benchmarks for a while. Recently, the company updated its software to version 3.0. With this new version, the old tests are no longer available to run for comparison. Still, we were able to round up a handful of phones to give you a feel for how the Galaxy S5 stacks up.

GFXBench and 3DMark Ice Storm
Android Gaming Benchmarks





Here the Samsung Galaxy S5 falls in just behind the HTC One (M8) which is a little surprising since both devices are powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC.  The variations are quite small, however and likely within this test's window of variability in scoring.

3DMark Ice Storm
Cutting-Edge 3D Rendering and Mobile Graphics Benchmark 

We've come to place a lot of stock in how Futuremark's latest mobile 3D gaming benchmark, 3DMark Ice Storm. The test scores device performance in a number of areas, from pure polygon and shader processing to physics calculations.  Futuremark is also very good about policing benchmark results in their database, looking for manufacturers trying to gain an edge by "optimizing" for the benchmark and changing the overall workload.





Here, the Galaxy S5 and HTC One (M8) are neck-and-neck again with only a 2 - 5% variation in scoring, the edge again going to the One (M8).  Perhaps it's a different low-level Adreno 330 driver revision that the GS5 is currently employing that results in the device coming in a few ticks behind HTC's latest flagship. Regardless, the variations again are negligible and this is the sort of thing Samsung can affect pretty easily with a future over the air firmware update.


Related content