Right now the chipset of a smartphone has become stronger and stronger, for most users, mid-range performance, balanced power consumption can be a good choice for a smartphone. Currently, the mid-range chipsets are Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20, but since Xiaomi released its first Pinecone Surge S1 chipset, there are three mid-range chipsets full of competition now. Therefore, today we find three smartphones, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X with Snapdragon 625 processor, Meizu M3X with Helio P20 processor and Xiaomi MI5C with Surge S1 SoC to prove which one is the most powerful mid-range processor.
Specs Comparison
CPU Performance
Before testing, let’s see their Antutu performance.
We can see in three chipsets, Helio P20 has highest score, 64,770, 5,000 points higher than Xiaomi MI5C, but Snapdragon 625 processor is in the middle among them, therefore, their performance gap is mainly in CPU.
In Geekbench 4 test, Helio P20 single core and multi-core performance are the most powerful, but Snapdragon 625 has more powerful single core performance, lower multi-core score, Surge S1 has lower single core score but higher multi-core score. In daily use, a smartphone has higher needs for single core performance, therefore, Snapdragon 625 processor will have advantages.
In PCMark test, it tests daily use for a smartphone such as Internet surfing, video processing, editting files, in the test, Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20 has similar performance, 4,673 points and 4,742 points accordingly, but Pinecone Surge S1 has lower performance. In conclusion, in CPU, Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20 are stronger a little than Pinecone Surge S1.
GPU Performance
It’s know to all that GPU performance will affect smartphone to play games, there are more and more users playing games by smartphone, we have higher needs for smartphone GPU.
In 3DMark,the highest level Sling Shot Extreme Unlimited test, Pinecone Surge S1 has got the first rank with 877 points, over Helio P20 ranking the second with 644 points, and Snapdragon 625 only has 505 points.
In GFXBench, Manhattan and Tyrannosaurus rex scene, Snapdragon 625 has got the similar score to Helio P20, but Surge S1 is highest, according to two tests, Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20 got the similar level in GPU, but Pinecone Surge S1 is much stronger than other two.
Durability Test
We believe many users play games very fluently first, but later on, it becomes hotter, and then the games will reduce the frequency to become stuck, so how are their durability test?
We use GFXBench software to test, let this three smartphones to run 30 times continously in Tyrannosaurus rex scene in 30 minutes, let’s check after 30 minutes, how does the chipset run?
After running 30 minutes, three chipsets performance has decreased to different degree. Check as follow.
We can see in 30 minutes test, Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20 performance has decreased between 4% to 5%, but Pinecone S1 only decreased 1.7%, we can see there is no fluctuation in Pinecone Surge S1, so Surge S1 has best durability.
Game Test
We choose a game, Real Racing 3, let them run the same scene, and use Gamebench to calculate the frame in the background.
According to the test, we can see they all have around 30 frame. In details, Helio P20 has a little higher frame, reaching 33FPS, but Snapdragon 625 processor only has 29FPS, Surge S1 has 32FPS.
Besides game performance, we also care about over heat issue, after testing three smartphones in 30 minutes, we can use the infrared temperature tester to test their highest temperature of their back covers.
Thanks to advanced 14/16nm process, Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20 have quite excellent performance in power consumption, the highest temperature is around 27℃, which is not hot at all, but Surge S1 shows 44.8℃ highest temperature, which is quite hot due to 28nm process.
Conclusion
In terms of test, Snapdragon 625 and Helio P20 have similar design idea, both use 14/16nm process, which can meet daily use for users, and get good performance in power consumption and heat issue by controlling the performance. For most users, smartphone battery life and heat issue are the most important factor they care about.
But Pinecone Surge S1 is similar to Snapdragon 625, Helio P20 in CPU part, when you use it to play games with longer time, it will cause heat issue, because it adopts 28nm process.
In fact, they all have their own advantages and disadvantages, Snapdragon 625 can have stable performance, Helio P20 is also nice with amazing battery life, as for Surge S1, it needs to optimize in the near future, but it still has very high competition. Therfore, which phone do you like most, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X, Meizu M3X or Xiaomi MI5C?