Samsung's Galaxy S scores in benchmarks

Samsung's Galaxy S scores in benchmarks

Samsung announced its flagship Android device, the Galaxy S (I9000), last week for Asia. The company is wasting no time to getting it to the hands of users. In fact, those in Singapore will be able to purchase one at the end of this week. We've just received an evaluation unit and will be doing a full review soon.

The new Hummingbird processor in the Galaxy S. (Credit: Samsung)

One of the most interesting things about the I9000 is its Samsung S5PC110 or Hummingbird processor. This chip is clocked at 1GHz and based on the Cortex A8 architecture. Announced late last year, the Hummingbird's full specifications are still not available on Samsung's semiconductor Web site. But at CTIA in the US early this year, Samsung revealed that the chip is capable of processing 90 million triangles per second, thanks to the PowerVR SGX 3D graphics engine. In comparison, the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor used in devices such as theHTC Desire and Google Nexus One does up to 22 million triangles per second.
With the Galaxy S in our labs, we decided to run a few quick benchmarks to see how it stacks up against the HTC Desire and Nexus One smartphones. The apps used were Linpack for Android, Benchmark from developer Softweg Studio and Neocore from Qualcomm.
These applications are freely available from the Android market. In the case of Benchmark, we focused on CPU performance and 2D graphics performance. Neocore measured 3D performance as it rendered a videogame-like sequence, reporting the resulting frames per second (fps) achieved. PC gamers will recognize this process as being similar to using 3DMark on a computer.
Here are the results.

Linpack for Android
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Samsung Galaxy S (1GHz Samsung S5PC110 processor, 512MB RAM)

8.419

Google Nexus One (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 512MB RAM)

6.940

HTC Desire (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 576MB RAM)

7.003

Benchmark by Softweg CPU performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Samsung Galaxy S (1GHz Samsung S5PC110 processor, 512MB RAM)

783

Google Nexus One (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 512MB RAM)

704

HTC Desire (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 576MB RAM)

695

Benchmark by Softweg 2D graphics performance
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Samsung Galaxy S (1GHz Samsung S5PC110 processor, 512MB RAM)

31.68

Google Nexus One (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 512MB RAM)

28.42

HTC Desire (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 576MB RAM)

28.46

Neocore 3D graphics in fps
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Samsung Galaxy S (1GHz Samsung S5PC110 processor, 512MB RAM)

55.7

Google Nexus One (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 512MB RAM)

26.5

HTC Desire (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor, 576MB RAM)

26.5

As shown by the charts above, the Galaxy S beat the two HTC-made devices by a bit for CPU and 2D graphics performance. But when it came to 3D graphics performance, the I9000 trumped the Qualcomm-equipped smartphones, achieving more than twice the frame rates of both the Nexus One and Desire (see video below).

These tests were performed on devices running Android 2.1. As some other reports have shown, the Nexus One is even faster with Android 2.2 (Froyo), improving upon its Eclair benchmarks, especially in terms of CPU performance. Given what the Galaxy S is capable of now, it's mouthwatering to imagine what it can do with a Froyo update. Samsung has said this will come eventually but hasn't committed to a release date.
Does this mean the Samsung Galaxy S is the Android phone to get? Well, there are other factors to consider, most of which we will explore in full in a thorough review. Watch out for that in the next few days.