LG G4 vs. Samsung Galaxy S6

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy S6 starts off with an advantage - two extra CPU cores (of the big kind) and a GPU better suited for the QHD resolution of the screen. Not to mention manufacturing the chipset at an advanced 14nm node, thanks to Samsung's own foundries.

LG had to rely on Qualcomm as its in-house chipset never quite manages to launch. It stepped down from the Snapdragon 810 (and its thermal issues) to the Snapdragon 808, which is built on an older 20nm process.

Let's count the troops. The Exynos 7420 inside the Galaxy S6 brings four Cortex-A57 cores at 2.1GHz, four Cortex-A53s at 1.5GHz and an octa-core Mali-T760.

The Snapdragon in the LG G4 has only two A57 cores at 1.82GHz, four A53s at 1.44GHz and Adreno 418, which should deliver a 20% boost over the Adreno 330. Both phones pack 3GB of RAM.

Storage performance is also important - it's the reason Samsung dropped "underperforming" microSD cards. The Galaxy S6 uses a proprietary UFS 2.0 system, which promises 2.7x the performance of eMMC 5.0.

Let's start with the processor. The Samsung Galaxy S6 makes short work of the LG G4. Single-core performance is slightly better as the big Cortex-A57 core is clocked higher. When all cores are engaged, however, the two additional A57s open a wide gap, the S6 beats the G4 by a good 50%.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  5215
• LG G4
  3509

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  6306
• LG G4
  5871

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  26799
• LG G4
  17739

Overall performance also goes in favor of the Galaxy S6. AnTuTu 5 shows a huge difference, while Basemark OS 2.0 reports barely any. Still, given the individual scores we're willing to side with AnTuTu.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  69396
• LG G4
  49295

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  1674
• LG G4
  1584

The LG G4 boasts a QHD screen though it doesn't bring the fastest GPU on the market. Still, if you used the LG G3 and it was fine, the G4 should be a bit faster.

Compared to the Galaxy S6, however, games have a lot less resources to work with. We'll look at just the on-screen scores since the resolutions are equal.

The older GFX Bench 2.7 shows a 50% advantage in framerate for the Galaxy S6. It makes the difference between a playable 38fps and a stutter 25fps. The newer GFX Bench 3.0 shows a similar difference in framerate of 50%.

Basemark X shows an even greater difference, awarding the Galaxy S6 an 80% higher score than the LG G4.

GFX 2.7 T-Rex (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  38
• LG G4
  24.7

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  14
• LG G4
  9.4

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  27169
• LG G4
  15090

For web browsing LG dropped its customized browser and went for Chrome instead, while Samsung maintains its own fork of the vanilla Android browser. JavaScript is single-treaded by nature so it falls to the fastest core, the Cortex-A57. Kudos to LG, despite the clock disadvantage it practically matches the Galaxy S6 on the Kraken 1.1 test.

Still, the Snapdragon 808 starts to sweat when it renders pages in QHD resolution and the BrowserMark 2.1 score shows a pretty decent advantage for the Galaxy S6.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• LG G4
  4085
• Samsung Galaxy S6
  4154

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  2718
• LG G4
  1990

Let's see if the UFS 2.0 storage lives up to expectations. Storage speed is measured for reading (e.g. launching an app) and writing (e.g. recording 2160p video). It also falls in two categories - sequential (say videos and music) and random (a game loading data as you move through the level).

The Samsung Galaxy S6 smokes the LG G4 in read tests, both sequential and random. The difference for writing is definitely visible though not quite as big. While recording 2160p video even on much slower microSD cards is not an issue, the better random performance will help multitasking as apps move data to and from the storage.

Sequential Read, MB/s

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  311
• LG G4
  246

Sequential Write, MB/s

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  139
• LG G4
  102

Random Read, MB/s

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  77
• LG G4
  28

Random Write, MB/s

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6
  20
• LG G4
  14

Winner: Samsung Galaxy S6. Essentially it won on all individual tests, the difference in performance will perhaps be most tangible for games. If you use the split-screen multitasking often then the CPU and storage advantage will be of better help too.