LG Optimus G preview: A closer look

Synthetic benchmarks

The LG Optimus G's new quad-core CPU flexed its muscle in the BenchmarkPi trial. The new architecture blew its quad-core competitors out of the water, posting a score of 285ms.

Benchmark Pi

Lower is better

• LG Optimus G
  285
• Sony Xperia T
  285
• HTC One S
  306
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  330
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  344
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  350
• Meizu MX 4-core
  362

The real shock came when we run the Linpack benchmark, which is designed to make use of multi-core CPUs. The Optimus G came so far ahead of its competitors here, that it's almost hard to believe. It offered nearly three times the performance of the second-best quad-core smartphone we've tested on this occasion.

Linpack

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  608
• HTC One S
  210
• Meizu MX 4-core
  189.1
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  177.1
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  160.9
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  141.5

To learn more about the overall performance of the LG Optimus G, we run the well familiar Quadrant benchmark, which tests everything from memory speed to GPU power. The LG Optimus G got the incredible score of 7439, which is way better than any smartphone has managed before. Impressive indeed.

Quadrant

Higher is better

• LG Optimus G
  7439
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  5952
• Sony Xperia T
  5675
• Samsung Galaxy S III
  5365
• Meizu MX 4-core
  5170
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  4814

We used Geekbench 2 to try and compare the Optimus G to the leaked iPhone 5 scores and while it did come out on top, it wasn't as fast as we would have expected (especially after that massive advantage in Linpack). Another quad-core LG is the Optimus 4X HD, but that one uses a Tegra 3 chipset with the old Cortex-A9 cores. It came surprisingly close as did other quad A9 phones like the HTC One X, while the Galaxy S III even beat it. The HTC One S has only half the number of Krait cores that the Optimus G has, but it's not nearly twice as slow either.

Geekbench 2

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S III
  1845
• LG Optimus G
  1723
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1661
• HTC One X (Tegra 3)
  1634
• iPhone 5
  1601
• HTC One S
  1589