What are the best mobile GPUs for smartphone in 2017

GPU (Graphic Processing Unit) is one of, is not the most important, pieces of hardware in your smartphone if you want to play on your mobile. Therefor,  it is important to know what are the best GPUs so if you want to buy a new smartphone for mobile gaming, then you are sure that all the mobile games will run smoothly in 2017.

If you play on PC, you already know that your graphic card integrate a GPU. Some PC can have their GPU also integrate on the motherboard. On Mobile phone it’s another story!

The System on a Chip explanations

Also called SOC, the system on a chip basically regroups all the components needed for a smartphone to perform the day to day tasks. See, on your PC, you plug your CPU, graphic card, RAM, hard drive,… in a tower or laptop. In a mobile where the space is reduced, manufacturers are putting those stuff together in a SOC, including CPU, GPU, Northbridge, Southbrige, Cellular radios, Other radios,…You will mainly find 2 types of SOCs in the mobile phone market: ARM and X86 by Intel. ARM is still the preferred choice as more power efficient but Intel is trying to close the gap with its Atom architecture.

What interests us in this articlel are the GPUs as they will handle most of the graphics calculation hence giving you the best gaming experience on mobile.

In a SOC, you will find those mobile GPU :

• Kepler, Maxwell : Used on Nvidia GPU from Tegra K1 to Tegra X1. No really popular in Mobile smartphone except Nvidia’s product (Nvidia Shield Tablet, Shield TV,…)
• Adreno:  Found mainly in Qualcomm SOC Snapdragon
• Mali: Mali GPUs are designed by ARM and can be found in SOC like Exynos (Samsung) or Kirin (Huawei) using the last Mali-G71 in Huawei Mate 9
• PowerVR: PowerVR GPUs are used in Apple iPhone and iPad for instance

In 2017, you will be seeing the following GPUs:

Kepler, Maxwell and Nvidia smartphone GPUs in 2017

Nvidia no longer prioritize smartphones therefore you won’t be able to find many Nvidia GPU in the upcoming month expect for Shield TV 2017 using a Maxwell GPU with 256 CUDA core). Sadly, no Nvidia Shield Portable 2 in the the pipeline (even the Shield Portable 2 was spotted at the FCC)

Adreno mobile GPUs in 2017

Adreno GPUs are owned by Qualcomm and can be found in Snapdragon SOC. As you can see on the official Qualcomm Snapdragon website, there are more than 20 Adreno GPUs to chose from the Adreno 302 in the Snapdragon 200 to the Adreno 530 available in the Snapdragon 821. Adreno 540 should be released this year 2017 equipping the new Snadragon 835.

Mali mobile GPUs in 2017

Mali GPUs are designed by ARM and like Adreno, there are a bunch of them available in various devices. From 2016, we will be focusing on Mali-T880, Mali-G51 and Mali-G71 that you can find in the new Huawei Mate 9.

PowerVR GPUs in 2017

PowerVR GPUs are build by Imagination Technologies and good examples of this GPU power is given by iPhone 6 or iPhone 7 gaming capabilities. For instance, the iPhone 7 uses a custom version of PowerVR GT7600. Imagination Technologies and Apple are quite close, the Cupertino firms owns around 10% of the firm and were in talk to takeover the company.

The benchmark!

I believe this is the moment you are all waiting for! I mean, it is interesting to know more about GPUs, etc,.. but in the end, what do we care about: WHAT IS THE BEST GPU FOR MOBILE GAMING!

I suggest we dive straight into it as I don’t want to confuse you with stats, number of cores, etc..(I can be the subject of another article if you want a full spec comparison). In order to provide the most relevant results, I’ve been using the following source of information:

• Futuremark
• Antutu
• GFX Bench

Futuremark Benchmark using 3Dmark Sling Shot Extreme

Futuremark uses 3DMark with Sling Shot Extreme with compare Android flagship versus Apple mobile devices. As its name stands, 3Dmark focus on 3D rendering capabilities.

[table id=1 /]

As you can see, the Oneplus 3T and a bunch of Android smartphones trust the top places. Curiously, the Apple iPhone 7 Plus ranked 15th with a PowerVR custom GPU scoring 2025 points versus the One Plus 3T using the Adreno 530 reaching the highest score of 2533 points.

All in All, we can clearly see Adreno 530 domination on this benchmark.

AnTuTu Benchmark

AnTuTu is a chinese Benchmark developed by  Shào Yīng and Liáng Bīn. In the past, AnTuTu has been criticized because manufacturers were cheating, hence forcing the cofounders to released AnTuTu X, more complicated to fool.

[table id=2 /]

Again, we can see a clear domination from the Adreno 530 available in Snadragon 820 and 821. The leader of this ranking is the LeEco Le Pro 3 with 62427 points where the iPhone 7 Plus ranks 6th with 59031 points. What is interesting too is that we don’t see big brands such as Samsung, LG, etc,… in the top, but rather new players.

GFX Benchmark

The last benchmark we will be looking at is GFX Benchmark. This benchmark is quite powerful and probably one of the best benchmark tool out there. It records average FPS (frame per seconds)  running some tough game like simulation, and also offers off screen benchmark, which doesn’t take into consideration screen resolution and focus only on the performance of your chipset ( a 2k resolution screen will be more power consuming than 1080p display hence resulting in worse performances)

For this benchmark we will be using 1080p Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen and Manhattan 3.1.

This is the demo Manhattan 3.1 is playing to test performance.

So let’s start with Manhattan 3.1

[table id=3 /]

On Manhattan 3.1, we can cleary see the domination of Apple custom PowerVR GT7600 then Adreno 530 and Mali G71 MP8 are on par.

Now let’s have a look at Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen data

[table id=4 /]

Here again, domination from Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus followed by Adreno 530 and Mali G71 MP8.

Conclusion

To conclude on the best GPU for smartphone in 2017, we can tell that there are clearly 2 winners : PowerVR GT7600 and Adreno 530. However, Mali G71 MP8 just got released and can only by found in Huawei Mate 9, therefor it will be interesting to look at it see how others manufacturers are able to make the most of it.

Then I believe it all comes to  « are you an Apple or Android fan ? » Then, you know if you have to look for a PowerVR GT7600 or Adreno 530 for playing on your mobile. Keep in mind that this article was only talking about GPUs, and for gaming, you can look at RAM, Display resolution, Storage, battery, etc… as all of this will have an impact on your mobile gaming experience.

What’s surprising is that, excluding Apple, traditional brands such as Samsung, LG, HTC, ..are not especially well ranked and are facing fierce competition from Chinese manufacturers. However, Mobile World Congress is soon there so let see what news it will bring.

Don’t hesitate to add your comments below!