adreno 505 Adreno 505 for gaming?

[Goldenhawk]

Hello,

 

I've been searching around for a phone under $400 AUD, currently I have a Samsung Note 3 N9005, however, it's only temporary. I mainly only use my phone for gaming, such as KOTOR, the upcoming Morphite game and light emulation (PS1). I've already ran into some issues on my current phone, mainly on Radiation City which doesn't even display a screen, though, I have also ran into issues with Dead Trigger 2. I think this is down to the older architecture of the Adreno 330 or OpenGL version? 

 

Anyway, I've found this phone, (Asus ZenFone 4 Max Pro) $319 AUD. It seems perfect, 5000mah battery, low screen resolution, Android Nougat with plans to Oreo later on and a headphone jack (damn iPhone). There's one downside though, the Adreno 505 graphics chip. When compared to my existing Adreno 330 chip, it's pathetic. Though, I wonder if I'll notice the difference, since my current phone renders 1080p, while the Asus phone only renders 720p. Wouldn't this help leverage the GPU performance, of course there will be a downgrade in graphic fidelity. Otherwise though, the phone is reasonable speedy, with 3GB RAM and an Qualcomm Snapdragon 430. Same RAM as my current phone, while the CPU is slower, I doubt I'd notice it. I literally have no complaints besides the low-end GPU, of course locked within the low-end CPU. Anyone else have this phone, if so, any other issues I should know of? Are there any better alternatives, I'm trying to find stand out features on a phone, such as USB Type-C, large batteries, good specifications (With good battery life) and sporting at least Android 7.0 with plans to Oreo.

 

So the main question is, will the Adreno 505 have a largely noticeable frame rate difference from an Adreno 330, even on a 720p display when compared to a 1080p Adreno 330 display?

[AlTech]

Trust me, that CPU difference is noticeable.

 

It's like going from a quad core back to a dual core.

 

the GPU difference would be huge. Frankly, the Adreno 505 is a joke compared to the Adreno 330. It's not meant for high performance gaming and frankly phones are terrible devices to play games on anyways imho.

[Goldenhawk]

3 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Trust me, that CPU difference is noticeable.

 

It's like going from a quad core back to a dual core.

 

the GPU difference would be huge. Frankly, the Adreno 505 is a joke compared to the Adreno 330. It's not meant for high performance gaming and frankly phones are terrible devices to play games on anyways imho.

The phone certainly wouldn't be my number one gaming device, that'll be my computer. Though, in some cases it's great to be able to play games on the go. I do mainly prefer the PC-like games, rather then the mobile games. Anyway, didn't think the difference would be that large in CPU performance, at most half I thought.

 

While it's not a reliable source, I did search online and find out that the Adreno 505 gets similar performance in Epic Citadel when compared to the Adreno 330, of course resolutions are largely different, with 720p on the 505 and 1080p on the 330.

[Zodiark1593]

16 hours ago, Goldenhawk said:

The phone certainly wouldn't be my number one gaming device, that'll be my computer. Though, in some cases it's great to be able to play games on the go. I do mainly prefer the PC-like games, rather then the mobile games. Anyway, didn't think the difference would be that large in CPU performance, at most half I thought.

 

While it's not a reliable source, I did search online and find out that the Adreno 505 gets similar performance in Epic Citadel when compared to the Adreno 330, of course resolutions are largely different, with 720p on the 505 and 1080p on the 330.

Epic Citadel had been no problem since the iPhone 4S days. The Adreno 505 should be much faster than that.

 

For most games available for Android, I don't imagine the Adreno 505 will be a major handicap, especially on a 720P display. In demanding 3D titles with lots of shaders, performance will be noticeably lower. On the up-side, battery life while actually gaming should be quite improved.

[D13H4RD]

It'll probably be fine but don't expect mind blowing performance on heavy 3D titles (duh)

[Goldenhawk]

After some extensive research into my existing Adreno 330 chip and the Adreno 505, I have found out that the Adreno 505 is near roughly half the performance of the Adreno 330, at least in 3DMark. That's a pretty large disparity, though, considering the 720p display on the Adreno 505 phone wouldn't the performance near match a Adreno 330 on a 1080p display? Since 720p has to render nearly half the amount of pixels, of courses this is all theoretical and may not transfer over at all into game framerate.

 

3DMark scores for Adreno 330 (Tested myself)

- Icestorm Extreme (12445 Points)

- Icestorm unlimited (19958 Points)

- Slingshot OpenGL 3.0 Unlimited (Unsure of resolution) (1347 Points)

 

3DMark scores for Adreno 505 (From Notebookcheck, potentially unreliable) 

- Icestorm Extreme (5627 Points)

- Icestorm Unlimited (9743 Points)

- Slingshot OpenGL 3.0 Unlimited 2560x1440 (568 Points)

 

I also went back and used my old Samsung J1 Ace (Worst phone I've ever used), for a couple of hours. I attempted to try running 3DMark, it constantly crashes.... Though, surprisingly it's able to handle games such as Hero and Castles 2 on medium graphic settings, without any or much lag. I think this is down to the pathetic 480x800 display, but really, I don't notice the difference between a 1080p display. The J1 Ace also managed to run Star Warfare Payback 2 on near lowest graphic settings, which my Adreno 330 can manage ultra with no issues. Though, it's still pretty good considering the Vivante GC7000UL graphics chip, according to Notebookcheck it's roughly the performance of a Adreno 305, also I've never heard of "Vivante" brand, lol. 

[Goldenhawk]

Some more research proves this point more, that the Adreno 505 is nearly half the performance of a Adreno 330. And the performance wouldn't be noticeably weaker on a 720p display, when compared to an Adreno 330 on a 1080p display. 

 

Anyone else got input on this, anyone own a phone with an Adreno 505, Adreno 405, or even an Adreno 506 who would be willing to assist me?

[Zodiark1593]

50 minutes ago, Goldenhawk said:

Some more research proves this point more, that the Adreno 505 is nearly half the performance of a Adreno 330. And the performance wouldn't be noticeably weaker on a 720p display, when compared to an Adreno 330 on a 1080p display. 

 

Anyone else got input on this, anyone own a phone with an Adreno 505, Adreno 405, or even an Adreno 506 who would be willing to assist me?

Apparently, the Adreno 405 is about on par with the older Adreno 320, which was used in the Snapdragon S4 Pro and the Snapdragon 600. The 2013 Nexus 7 with the latter chip is still fairly capable. Simple 2d games are no problem. 3d games such as Riptide GP2 need reduced settings to run well. Other games like Geometry Wars will run just fine. Keep in mind the resolution was 1920 x 1200.