is the SD 636 soc of zenfone 5 more powerful than redmi note 5 pro and other budget 636 phones?

[Big Boar]

hello people! i notice on reviews that the zenfone 5 antutu scores reaches 137k total despite having SD 636 chips. other sd 636 chips particularly the budget ones around 200 dollars only scores around 112k. so is the zenfone 5 more powerful than redmi 5 pro? im still choosing which to buy and zenfone 5 is on my top list. im just to make sure. even budget SD 660 phones like xiaomi mi 6x/A2 scored lower of 123k. do you recommend this phone over 300 dollar budget SD 660? thank you!

 

[mikedt]

"dollars"... is that USD? Are you in the US? Something to consider, because I believe these phones might be Asia only, certainly the Xiaomi is Asia only. Which means depending on where you are in the world, it might be a grey import, and if you are in the US, you better check carrier compatibility as a priority over things like Antutu benchmarks.

 

[Hadron]

No, the SoC isn't more powerful than the same SoC in other devices. There are other ways of influencing those benchmark scores, from using faster storage (which costs money) to software optimisations. Some of these might be legitimate (e.g. using a different process scheduler), others are not (e.g. changing the behaviour of the phone when it detects that a benchmark app is running - a stunt that a number of manufacturers have pulled over the years). You might be able to find out if there are any hardware advantages (e.g. what the storage technology is), though you normally need more detail than retailers spec sheets to find that out. It's unlikely you'll be able to find out about firmware tweaks, either real optimisations or benchmark cheating, without someone who knows what they are doing taking the phone and analysing it in detail.

Personally I don't even look at synthetic benchmark scores when choosing phones. They are poorly correlated to real world performance, as well as widely cheated by manufacturers. Things that Antutu doesn't measure, like how well the user interface and memory management are optimised, will make more difference in real life than anything these scores are measuring, even if you could be sure that the scores were not being manipulated by the manufacturer. So personally I'd ignore the benchmarks and make your choice based on other factors.

 

[Big Boar]

"dollars"... is that USD? Are you in the US? Something to consider, because I believe these phones might be Asia only, certainly the Xiaomi is Asia only. Which means depending on where you are in the world, it might be a grey import, and if you are in the US, you better check carrier compatibility as a priority over things like Antutu benchmarks.

well... if from philippines. but im thinking of using dollar price for people to understand price. i don't think people will understand the price if i use Philippine peso value.