Performance vs the GS2

[Amberite]

So we all know by now that the GN is silky smooth. However, I am wondering how much of that has to do with ICS and how much has to do with the real internals of the phone. I am trying to decide between the GS2 and the GN, and I'm very hesitant because of the performance angle. On paper, the GS2 seems like it has a much better processor / video card. Some benchmarks show the phones almost equal, while others heavily favor the GS2.

My question is, does anyone have experience with both phones and has tried something non-ICS on the GN? For example, has anyone tried any intensive games on both phones to see if there is any difference?

I basically don't want to rush to the GN because it has ICS and then realize in 3 months time that the GS2 with ICS was a better decision.

 

[craiggers14]

You'll never really be able to compare apples to apples since the GS2 has the Exynos and the Nexus has the OMAP.

 

[sb1831]

Please don't get caught up on benchmarks. They're easily manipulated and rather useless in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Amberite]

You'll never really be able to compare apples to apples since the GS2 has the Exynos and the Nexus has the OMAP.

That's exactly why I'm looking for people's experiences. They're two different processors, but when using two different phones, you can pretty easily see which one has the better hardware, if they're about equal, etc.

Please don't get caught up on benchmarks. They're easily manipulated and rather useless in the grand scheme of things.

I know, benchmarks often don't really tell the story, especially ones that aren't optimized for ICS (quadrant). Again, that's why I was wondering if anyone has experience with both phones.

 

[tgyberg]

The GS2's display is 800x400 and the phone has Touchwiz or whatever..FTL. See, easy decision!

 

[pushdrops]

The GS2's display is 800x400 and the phone has Touchwiz or whatever..FTL. See, easy decision!

Actually the camera on the Epic Touch 4G is many times better than the GNex, the speaker much louder, the display though lower resolution looks very good <guess either you like or don't the hyped colors on the Super AMOLED Plus on the GS2> , I prefer physical buttons - I'd MUCH rather a GS2 but VZW doesn't offer one.

Specs alone aren't everything, spends a few minutes with an Epic Touch 4G or another GS2 and compare to the GNex. (if the Sprint network wasn't horrible in our area, the ET4G that I have would be activated and not only for wi-fi only use and I wouldn't be on this thread looking over GNex stuff and going to checkout the GNex after waiting so long for it, guess research on the GNex now is limited to seeing if they fix the super weak speaker and camera thru updates).

 

[Creed]

If you purely want performance than the only choice for you is the Nexus.

• The OMAP4460 is a higher binned chip which will run with the lowest voltage at 1.5GHz of all the chips in the various Galaxy S2s.
• The RAM on the two phones are the same but the OMAP4460 has a dual-channel memory controller which increases performance tremendously (some tests on PCs show it making up for up to 2x the amount of RAM e.g. 16g RAM having same benchmarks as 8g RAM with a duel-channel memory controller Phenom.)
• The 32gigs of flash memory is tremendously faster than any SD card on the market.
• The screen is better in every way.
• Even the Nexus's GPU is better, the Galaxy's
  Mali-400MP is clocked at 275MHz while the Nexus's SGX is clocked at 384MHz.​
  
  

I dont know what you mean by performance but the HARDWARE is only slightly better but it IS better.​

 

[iKN0WaGH0ST]

PassMark Mobile Benchmark Charts

 

[Amberite]

If you you purely want performance than the only choice for you is the Nexus.

• The OMAP4460 is a higher binned chip which will run with the lowest voltage at 1.5GHz of all the chips in the various Galaxy S2s.
• The RAM on the two phones are the same but the OMAP4460 has a dual-channel memory controller which increases performance tremendously (some tests on PCs show it making up for up to 2x the amount of RAM e.g. 16g RAM having same benchmarks as 8g RAM with a duel-channel memory controller Phenom.)
• The 32gigs of flash memory is tremendously faster than any SD card on the market.
• The screen is better in every way.
• Even the Nexus's GPU is better, the Galaxy's
  Mali-400MP is clocked at 275MHz while the Nexus's SGX is clocked at 384MHz.​

I dont know what you mean by performance but the HARDWARE is only slightly better but it IS better.​

PassMark Mobile Benchmark Charts

Thanks to both of you! This really puts my mind at rest.

 

[nleksan]

If you purely want performance than the only choice for you is the Nexus.

• The OMAP4460 is a higher binned chip which will run with the lowest voltage at 1.5GHz of all the chips in the various Galaxy S2s.
• The RAM on the two phones are the same but the OMAP4460 has a dual-channel memory controller which increases performance tremendously (some tests on PCs show it making up for up to 2x the amount of RAM e.g. 16g RAM having same benchmarks as 8g RAM with a duel-channel memory controller Phenom.)
• The 32gigs of flash memory is tremendously faster than any SD card on the market.
• The screen is better in every way.
• Even the Nexus's GPU is better, the Galaxy's
  Mali-400MP is clocked at 275MHz while the Nexus's SGX is clocked at 384MHz.​
  
  
  

I dont know what you mean by performance but the HARDWARE is only slightly better but it IS better.​

Hmm... that sounds like exactly my reasoning...

FWIW, I have personally done the single vs dual channel memory tests on my high-end rig (1x8GB stick vs 2x4GB sticks, both G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600) and the dual-channel memory is about ~10-40% better on benchmarks, with multitasking and memory-intensive benchmarks showing a much higher difference between the two, that being a clear preference for dual-channel. Even in less memory intensive apps the dual-channel still had a slight advantage, so I would assume that in the mobile CPU/GPU realm it would be the same.

These tests were done using the aforementioned G.Skill RAM (I normally have 4x8GB sticks), a Phenom II X6 1100T @ 4.7ghz, ASUS Crosshair V 990FX Motherboard, dual Radeon 6970's, and a combination of RAID0 SDD/HDDs and RAID10 HDD's. Everything is water-cooled to maintain consistency.


**disabling the Video Cards' PCIe slots and running off of integrated video (which uses shared system memory), the dual channel 2x4GB ran about 230-280% better than the single-channel 1x8GB in almost everything I threw at it.

 

[nleksan]

Also, from my experience with the Nexus so far... I would say that the 32GB of Flash Memory is actually a HUGE ADVANTAGE for this phone! I do wish they included an SD Card slot, because 32GB of Flash plus 32GB of Class10 SD would be wicked (or even a new 64/128GB SD "ultra"!), but regardless it's still plenty of room. With over 1100+ songs, two full-length 720p films, 8 TV Show Episodes (27min ea) in 720p, plus a few apps and I still have 28.xx GB of space left! (The music is a mix of mp3, mp4, and various Lossless formats).

The thing is.. The FLASH MEMORY IS FAAAAAAST!!!
Honestly, it's like the difference between using a 7200rpm Hard Drive in your high-end PC compared to using a Solid State Drive: the latter makes EVERYTHING faster! I mean, for all intents and purposes, the integrated Flash memory IS A SSD! I believe it has a NAND controller, and it also has write-rewrite protection, and the flash chips are integrated right onto the main silicon. That gives it a huge advantage over ANY externally-connected storage medium, such as microSD, as the latter is limited by the interface but the former is only limited by the chip itself.

I LOVE THIS PHONE'S MEMORY!

 

[Creed]

Hmm... that sounds like exactly my reasoning...

FWIW, I have personally done the single vs dual channel memory tests on my high-end rig (1x8GB stick vs 2x4GB sticks, both G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600) and the dual-channel memory is about ~10-40% better on benchmarks, with multitasking and memory-intensive benchmarks showing a much higher difference between the two, that being a clear preference for dual-channel. Even in less memory intensive apps the dual-channel still had a slight advantage, so I would assume that in the mobile CPU/GPU realm it would be the same.

These tests were done using the aforementioned G.Skill RAM (I normally have 4x8GB sticks), a Phenom II X6 1100T @ 4.7ghz, ASUS Crosshair V 990FX Motherboard, dual Radeon 6970's, and a combination of RAID0 SDD/HDDs and RAID10 HDD's. Everything is water-cooled to maintain consistency.


**disabling the Video Cards' PCIe slots and running off of integrated video (which uses shared system memory), the dual channel 2x4GB ran about 230-280% better than the single-channel 1x8GB in almost everything I threw at it.

And that is why the 'super old' OMAP is the chip to beat

Also, wow, your PC is a beast.

 

[Creed]

Also, from my experience with the Nexus so far... I would say that the 32GB of Flash Memory is actually a HUGE ADVANTAGE for this phone! I do wish they included an SD Card slot, because 32GB of Flash plus 32GB of Class10 SD would be wicked (or even a new 64/128GB SD "ultra"!), but regardless it's still plenty of room. With over 1100+ songs, two full-length 720p films, 8 TV Show Episodes (27min ea) in 720p, plus a few apps and I still have 28.xx GB of space left! (The music is a mix of mp3, mp4, and various Lossless formats).

The thing is.. The FLASH MEMORY IS FAAAAAAST!!!
Honestly, it's like the difference between using a 7200rpm Hard Drive in your high-end PC compared to using a Solid State Drive: the latter makes EVERYTHING faster! I mean, for all intents and purposes, the integrated Flash memory IS A SSD! I believe it has a NAND controller, and it also has write-rewrite protection, and the flash chips are integrated right onto the main silicon. That gives it a huge advantage over ANY externally-connected storage medium, such as microSD, as the latter is limited by the interface but the former is only limited by the chip itself.

I LOVE THIS PHONE'S MEMORY!

Everything you say is so true but even if that didn't sell you:
Even with the the 10 Class SDs you are looking at another 50 or so dollars in addition to the $300 device where as with the Nexus you get 32 natively.

 

[humanputting]

If the op is looking to play games then I would definitely get the gs2 my reasoning is most hardcore games require multi touch like shadow gun heavy gunner earth and legend. The galaxy nexus doesn't like to do multi touch very well that alone make the gs2 a better platform to play games. The screen on the gnex is beautiful and HD. But most games are designed to run on those lower resolutions anyway plus the battery on the gs2 lasts longer because of it.
Even better if you can wait for the gs3 I would do that but if your looking to get a super awesome phone that is okay at playing games get the nexus. I was the first one to get it at my store and I haven't looked back. I would buy it again purely on the new keyboard alone. Its that good.

 

[Creed]

If the op is looking to play games then I would definitely get the gs2 my reasoning is most hardcore games require multi touch like shadow gun heavy gunner earth and legend. The galaxy nexus doesn't like to do multi touch very well that alone make the gs2 a better platform to play games. The screen on the gnex is beautiful and HD. But most games are designed to run on those lower resolutions anyway plus the battery on the gs2 lasts longer because of it.
Even better if you can wait for the gs3 I would do that but if your looking to get a super awesome phone that is okay at playing games get the nexus. I was the first one to get it at my store and I haven't looked back. I would buy it again purely on the new keyboard alone. Its that good.

You are way off on the multi-touch, the Nexus has been documented doing 10 fingers and it probably could do more but the tester only had 10 fingers.

[video=youtube;YtNRtrq5bxo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtNRtrq5bxo[/video]

All the games you have mentioned play wonderfully on the Nexus.

[video=youtube;2YRYMh3ShzA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YRYMh3ShzA&feature=related[/video]

Heavy Gunner can run on the Nexus S.

[video=youtube;hxoo2JNr5Vg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxoo2JNr5Vg[/video]

So basically your entire point is moot. The games play better, look better, and start faster on the Nexus. For gaming, a Nexus is MORE than a valid choice.