Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 Review: Great Perf, Superb OLED
Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360: Performance Benchmarks
Otherwise, we run all of our tests with out-of-the-box settings, unless otherwise noted. Our goal is to test the system as it ships, but after auto-updating, to accurately reflect what buyers can expect from a retail experience.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
ATTO disk benchmark is a fairly quick and dirty test that measures sequential read/write bandwidth across a range of different data sizes. While we don't typically compare these results across multiple machines, it's useful to gauge whether a particular notebook's storage subsystem is up to snuff.
We tested the drive using the default queue depth of 4, as well as a QD of just 1 to get a better sense of its overall behavior. The QD4 workload allows the drive a little bit of runway to keep transfers flowing more smoothly, while QD1 can be more representative of moment-by-moment system calls and overall responsiveness. Overall write speeds for the WD SN740 are marginally faster at QD4, as expected, but both results are respectable for a midrange PCIe Gen 4 drive. The read speeds lag a bit more at QD1, but are still snappy enough for us to expect a smooth experience.
BrowserBench Speedometer Web App Benchmarks
We use BrowserBench.org's Speedometer test to gauge mixed internet usage experience, which takes a holistic look at web application performance. This test automatically loads and runs several sample web apps from ToDoMVC.com using the most popular web development frameworks around, including React, Angular, Ember.js, and vanilla JavaScript. This test is a better example of how systems cope with real web applications, as opposed to a pure JavaScript compute test like JetStream.
The Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 performs very strongly in this web experience test. While this workload does not typically infer strong brute-force performance, it does correlate well with system responsiveness.
Cinebench R23 And GeekBench 5
This is the latest 3D rendering benchmark from Maxon, based on the Cinema 4D R23 rendering engine. We tested both single-threaded and multi-threaded tests on all of the notebooks represented here. Meanwhile, with GeekBench, which is a fully synthetic benchmark that performs tasks like text compression and image compression, we tested its CPU Benchmark module as well. You can consider both of these tests as pure CPU throughput metrics, with Cinebench offering a heavier-duty real world workload.
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 performs admirably in both workloads. While it trails the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U equipped ThinkPad Z13 narrowly in Cinebench, it nearly manages to overtake the Ryzen 9 6900HS powered ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming notebook in Geekbench, but that's just talking multicore throughput. It thrashes every other system in the single-threaded tests, which reinforces the perception of responsiveness.
UL PCMark 10
PCMark 10 uses a mix of real-world applications and simulated workloads to establish how well a given system performs productivity tasks, including image and video editing, web browsing, and OpenOffice document editing. While these scores appear to be all over the place, the systems are sorted by their overall PCMark score, which is the bottom (gold) bar in each cluster.
Our PCMark10 results contain a number of systems with discrete GPUs mixed in. Nevertheless, the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 is right in the mix near the top of the chart with integrated Intel Xe graphics. It is buoyed by a strong Essentials score, but by and large succeeds with solid scores all around.
3DMark Graphics & GPU Tests
3DMark has several different graphics tests which focus on different types of systems. We tested here with Night Raid, which is 3DMark's targeted benchmark for laptops with integrated graphics. This test presents a solid challenge for the system's CPU and GPU engines using DirectX 12's API. We also tested Fire Strike Extreme. This DirectX 11 test is more intensive, originally developed for gaming desktops, but thin and light notebooks can still give it a shot.
The Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 represents about the best Intel Xe graphics have to offer in both workloads, but the needle has not meaningfully moved in several generations, as Intel's integrated GPU itself is the same as ever. The chip can handle some light gaming just fine, but more rigorous titles are better left to systems with a discrete GPU.
Shadow Of War And Gears Tactics
Middle Earth: Shadow of War is a fun and beautiful title set in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings universe. To test the game's performance relative to other systems, we set the resolution to 1920x1080 and turned the visuals up to the High preset. For Gears Tactics, we used a similar resolution, but tested the game with its Low, Medium, and High presets to see how it scales. The frame rates here are the averages reported by each game's built-in benchmark utilities.
Both games result in the Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 delivering some of the best framerates we’ve seen for systems with integrated graphics. The Radeon 680M may fare slightly better as graphical fidelity increases, but it isn’t exactly a smashing victory, either. Any laptop in this bracket would be better served by dropping to a medium preset to enjoy smoother framerates.
Next up we'll take a look at battery life and thermal performance before we render our final verdict...
