ASUS ROG Phone 3 Review: Fastest Android On The Planet
by
Paul Lilly
—
Tuesday, August 04, 2020, 12:15 PM EDT
ASUS ROG Phone 3: Performance Benchmark Results
The latest version of Geekbench for Android has aligned its scores with the desktop version of Geekbench 5, which means we recently had to capture all new results. The data presented here shouldn't be compared to Geekbench results in some of our older smartphone reviews. However, we still have a pretty big cross-section of devices represented, so let's see how the ROG Phone 3 fares versus some other high-end handsets...
Geekbench 5
Synthetic CPU Benchmark
In these Geekbench 5 tests, the ROG Phone 3 takes a second place finish to Apple's iPhone 11 Pro, besting every other Android handset to date. The gap in single-core performance is particularly noteworthy, though it also leads every Android phone in multi-core performance as well. Initiating the performance-enhancing X-Mode doesn't do a whole lot, but does add a few more points for a nominal jump.
PCMark Work 2.0 For Android
Pocket Productivity And General System Performance
We've used UL's PCMark on desktops, and the Work 2.0 benchmark for Android is an excellent suite of tests. We like the Work 2.0 benchmark has a wide range of tasks, including image and video editing along with everyday workloads including email and web browsing. When you see the test running live, it's clear the scripted application tests are carefully selected and tuned to make use of the mobile platforms involved in a very controlled way.
The ROG Phone 3 kept the momentum going in PCMark, where it outpaced all other Android phones in the overall standing. In addition, enabling X-Mode had a bigger impact in performance here, with sizable gains notched in every category. The Photo Editing test particularly stands out, though it tends to be a bit volatile.
AnTuTu 8 And AITuTu
Platform Benchmarks
AnTuTu’s latest benchmark returns a number of metrics ranked with somewhat nebulous scores, rather than frame rates or time to complete. Here we're running the latest version of AnTuTu across an multiple Android devices. AnTuTu returns four top level performance results which are all included here: CPU, RAM, 3D, UX (or User Experience), along with a total score...
The ROG Phone 3 kept its class-leading pace going in Antutu, and here again, we see X-Mode offering a decent jump in the performance results. Even at stock, however, the ROG Phone 3 sits at the top of the pack.
AITuTu - Measuring AI Workload Performance On Mobile Devices
AITuTu's Image Classification AI Benchmark Workload
AITuTu evaluates the AI performance of a device by leveraging two mainstream neural network models for machine learning and AI -- Inception v3 for Image Classification and MobileNet-SSD for Object Detection. The benchmark determines the device’s accuracy and speed when inferring data from each workload...
For the first time in our benchmark run, we see the ROG Phone 3 give some ground to other Android handsets, coming in just a tick behind the OnePlus 8 and Nubia RedMagic. It's close, though, and when turning on X-Mode, the ROG Phone 3 races back in front of the pack with the highest score of the bunch.
Next up we'll focus on 3D performance using GFXBench and UL's 3DMark Sling Shot benchmarks. Since modern Android phones come with displays of all shapes and sizes, we level the playing field by looking at off-screen rendering performance. While that doesn't draw full-sized images to the screen and makes the benchmarks a little less fun to watch in the process, this does ensure that every phone gets the exact same task. These tests are a bit more challenging than most 3D games on Google Play, since most developers want their games to be playable for the vast majority of phones.
GFX Bench
Pushing Pixels to the Panel
GFXBench Manhattan
GFXBench has several scenes built in. The most well-known batteries are the T-Rex test and Manhattan. These are good choices for our lower-end phone, since it doesn't have big, beefy graphics built in.
Shifting over to graphics and gaming, the ROG Phone 3 flexes its might, putting some distance between itself and the rest of the pack. In the T-Rex test, the ROG Phone 3 in X-Mode ran around 11.5 percent faster than the Moto Edge+ and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, and around 7 percent faster without X-Mode. And in the Manhattan benchmark, we recorded differences of around 9.2 percent and 2.3 percent with X-Mode engaged and disengaged, respectively, compared to the next closest scores.
3DMark
UL graphics test performance
Futuremark 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Benchmark
UL's 3DMark has been a staple 3D graphics benchmark at HotHardware across all mobile and desktop platforms alike. It seems that UL has retired Ice Storm, as that benchmark no longer appears in the application. However, we still have results for Sling Shot Extreme, which uses 1920x1080 off-screen rendering to test performance in its scene.
Finally, the ROG Phone 3 asserted its dominance among Android phones in 3DMark's Sling Shot Extreme benchmark. Its overall score while in X-Mode finished 7.9 percent ahead of the OnePlus 8, and around 7.4 percent at stock. The gaps in the individual graphics scores are even bigger, at around 10.6 percent in X-Mode, and 10.4 percent at stock. We also see a huge leap in performance compared to last year's ROG Phone II Ultimate.
