Best phones for games: here is how powerful graphics in our mobile devices really are

We’ve often said that the latest smartphone games have reached console-like graphics and that’s not even a metaphor anymore. The latest graphical chips (GPUs) inside smartphones can easily match those of early consoles, and are approaching the performance of consoles like the Sony Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

To measure performance right you need to get the whole package right - not just the graphics, but also the processor, the screen and so many other elements. Here, though, we aim to take a look at just the graphics part and understand how much of a graphics oomph smartphones can deliver, and how does it compare to consoles, laptops and desktops.

For that, we turn to measuring GFlops, a way to put mobile and desktop GPUs on par and compare them. For instance, the measurement from devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One show performance in the vicinity of 50 GFlops (the higher, the better). The new Apple iPhone 5s takes that to a whole new level with its PowerVR G6430 chip scoring 76.8GFlops. In comparison, consoles like the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 score around 230 GFlops. From a monumental difference we’re seeing how quickly mobile is catching up.

You can see the full evolution of smartphone graphics and their performance, and get the full picture right at the link below. Here, we’ll just link the names of some popular handsets with their graphics card for you to understand how they rate.

Phone/Platform - GPU - Approximate GFlops

• Samsung Galaxy Nexus - PowerVR SGX 540 - 6.1 GFlops
• Average white box Chinese phone - MT6589 - 9.2
• Advanced white box Chinese phone - MT6589T - 11.4
• Apple iPhone 5 - SGX543 MP3 (w/ Apple A6) - 28.8
• Early 2013 Android flagship (HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4) - Adreno 320 (w/ Snapdragon 600) ~ 51.2
• Average Tegra 4 device - 72
• Apple iPad 4 - SGX554 MP4 (w/ Apple A6X) - 76.8
• Apple iPhone 5s - PowerVR G6430 (w/ Apple A7) - 76.8
• Sony Playstation 3 - Nvidia G70 - 228.8
• XBOX 360 - ATI R500 Xenos - 240
• XBOX One - AMD GCN2.0 - 1240
• Sony Playstation 4 - AMD GCN2.0 - 1840

source: Hinet