The Samsung Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+ Review
by Joshua Ho on October 2, 2015 8:00 AM ESTSystem Performance Cont'd
Now that we’ve covered some of the traditionally CPU-bound tests, we can start to look at tests that more strongly emphasize GPU performance. It’s worth noting here that while 3DMark is supposed to determine gaming and graphics performance, the overall score includes a CPU performance component in the form of a physics test that means it isn't much of a pure GPU test.
Overall, there's nothing really surprising about these results. The Exynos 7420 should continue to deliver great GPU performance for anyone interested in a high-end phablet or smartphone. There are some improvements in 3DMark in regards to graphics performance, but it's likely that we're just looking at newer drivers as the GPU doesn't heat up fast enough for throttling to be affecting these results.
NAND Performance
At this point, it’s probably not a surprise to know that NAND performance can have very real effects on user experience. If an OEM decides to skimp heavily on storage in order to drive the price down, it’s at least somewhat likely that the device will start to exhibit major IO pauses at some point in the device lifecycle. In order to test this, we rely on our standard storage tests which include Androbench with some custom settings to get more realistic test results along with StorageBench for iOS which is comparable to Androbench.
In the case of the Galaxy Note5 we’re still looking at a UFS storage solution similar to what was found in the Galaxy S6, but it looks like this is slightly newer as the storage is identified as a Toshiba THGLF2G8J4LBATDA chip rather than the Samsung variant that was found in the Galaxy S6. It’s unclear whether Samsung is now multi-sourcing UFS storage for their mobile devices or what distribution exists here.
Interestingly, the Note5 regresses a little bit in storage performance relative to the Galaxy S6, which is likely due to the shift to Toshiba's NAND. However, this difference is small enough that in everyday use it's unlikely that it will be noticed. Performance over time should be acceptable as well.
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lilmoe - Sunday, October 4, 2015 - link
Samsung is selling Exynos to anyone willing to buy...Tech_guy - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Why weren't 6s benchmarks included? This is stupid, and misleading. You're trying to make Samsung look good. It'll embarrass the Note 5, like iPhone 6s is about 4 times the onscreen graphics performance lol. Did Samsung increase their advertising on Ananadtech.com?freeskier93 - Saturday, October 3, 2015 - link
Dude chill out, these phones were released before the 6s/+. The full 6s/+ review isn't even out yet so it only makes sense.thedons1983 - Sunday, October 18, 2015 - link
What a pathetic faggot. Please don't breed, as the world has enough ill-informed morons as it is!!secretmanofagent - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
No mention at all of it dropping multitasking? This is an important question.randomlm - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
A few errors in this review,1 . At the front page, Note 4 rear camera's aperture is stated as F/2.0, it is actually F2.2
2. At the battery life page it is stated that note 4 has a "planar 20nm process". This is only true for Exynos Note 4 which has the 5433, but it appears on the front page that the Snapdragon Note 4 is being compared instead, which has a 28 nm process.
3. On the camera architecture page, the front camera's aperture of Note 4 is stated as F2.4. It should be F1.9.
4. I disagree with the line "Samsung has actually managed to implement low light image processing that's good enough to beat" ( Lightroom's noise reduction ability). Not a fair comparison. In JPEG shots, samsung has been known to always activate "night mode", which uses a sort of "image stacking" process by combining (my guess is 3) images taken in quick succession to reduce noise (and improving the SNR of an image). By using raw, only one image of shutter speed 1/7 is taken. With only 1 image worth of data to process, the lightroom processed image will definitely lose out! But your point is there, that samsung's really good at JPG processing for night photos.
Still a pretty good review, thanks.
Ryan Smith - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Thanks randomlm. I've taken care of 2 and 3. As for item #1, in my notes I have it down as 2.0, but I will get Josh to check this.beck2448 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Note 5 is awesome. Moved up from the 3. Screen is clearly the best in business including the iphone.Fast and great camera. Low light pix much better. It's a winner.
nerd1 - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
Okay now I absolutely hate anandtech reviews. THEY INTENTIONALLY OMITTED ANY COMPARISON THAT MAKE APPLE DEVICES LOOK BAD.-Display review lacks contrast and outdoor contrast (both AMOLED dominates)
-Browser benchmark uses terrible mobile chrome, not stock browser which is way better.
-Processor benchmark lacks any multithread benchmarks (like geekbench multi)
-NAND R/W results makes absolutely sense at all, compared to this http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-galaxy-s6-storage...
-Camera comparison only shows the focus lag comparison and no resolution / noise / dynamic range that actually matters
I'm really surprised to see this low level of journalism at anandtech. Why cherry pick test results to make apple device look the best? Even worse thing is that most people will take those graphs as 'unbiased and technical'
Yanic - Saturday, October 3, 2015 - link
If this is the case, then this will be the last Anandtech review I ever read. Really sad.