5. Performance



The Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) is powered by an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor. Samsung is cagey about chipset details, but our unit is built around a Snapdragon 615. The 2GB of RAM are below par for this price range. Also, the Adreno 405 GPU does not provide the smoothest of framerates for graphics intensive gaming.
The Galaxy A5 (2016) is available with an Exynos 7580 too, a very similar chipset with eight A53 cores and Mali T720MP GPU. This is not the version we're reviewing though, we have the S615 model and this page is based on it.
Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016) review
AnTuTu 5 shows a big improvement over the old Galaxy A5 (which ran on Snapdragon 410), but the new model has competition from some quite affordable devices such as the Xiaomi Mi 4c or the OnePlus X. The latter even uses a Snapdragon 800 chipset!
Then again the HTC One A9 (which is the expensive of the lot) has a Snapdragon 617 chipset, which got winded pretty quickly.
Running Basemark OS II 2.0 on the Galaxy A5 shows similar findings - it's better than last year's model, but not as good as some cheaper handsets.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S669396
  • LG Nexus 5X51948
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c50875
  • HTC One A940631
  • OnePlus X39990
  • vivo X5Pro34649
  • Xiaomi Redmi 334077
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)33841
  • Samsung Galaxy A521581

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S61674
  • LG Nexus 5X1591
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c1233
  • OnePlus X1213
  • HTC One A9944
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot859
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)833
  • Xiaomi Redmi 3804
  • vivo X5Pro738
  • Samsung Galaxy A5569
Digging into the details, the CPU performance seems pretty great. Not Galaxy S6 great, but it gives the Snapdragon 808-based Xiaomi Mi 4c a run for its money (in multi-core performance, single-core is obviously a different story thanks to the two powerful Cortex-A57 cores that the Snapdragon 808 wields).

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S65215
  • LG Nexus 5X3527
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c3321
  • HTC One A93209
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)3061
  • Xiaomi Redmi 32842
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot2827
  • OnePlus X2297
  • vivo X5Pro2241
  • Samsung Galaxy A51460

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S66306
  • LG Nexus 5X5808
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c5739
  • OnePlus X5118
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot2976
  • vivo X5Pro2767
  • HTC One A92753
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)2469
  • Xiaomi Redmi 32169
  • Samsung Galaxy A51861

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S626799
  • HTC One A919160
  • LG Nexus 5X17456
  • OnePlus X16983
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)16466
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot15126
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c14276
  • Xiaomi Redmi 312172
  • vivo X5Pro8733
  • Samsung Galaxy A57492
The GPU offers a 50% to 100% boost in performance compared to the older A5, but you still don't quite get awesome framerates. Even the old Adreno 330 in the OnePlus X is almost twice as fast as the Adreno 405.
Note that the Galaxy A5 (2016) doesn't support OpenGL ES 3.1 at this point even though the chipset should theoretically support it.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S624
  • LG Nexus 5X16
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c15
  • OnePlus X9.9
  • Huawei Honor 79.2
  • HTC One A96.4
  • Xiaomi Redmi 35.8
  • vivo X5Pro5.8
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot5.8
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)5.7
  • Samsung Galaxy A51.8

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

  • LG Nexus 5X17
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c15
  • Samsung Galaxy S614
  • Xiaomi Redmi 312
  • OnePlus X10
  • Huawei Honor 79.3
  • HTC One A96.7
  • vivo X5Pro5.8
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot5.8
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)5.7
  • Samsung Galaxy A53.9

Basemark X

Higher is better

  • Samsung Galaxy S627169
  • LG Nexus 5X16609
  • Xiaomi Mi 4c12096
  • OnePlus X10572
  • Huawei Honor 79377
  • HTC One A96617
  • Lenovo Vibe Shot5215
  • Xiaomi Redmi 35108
  • vivo X5Pro5091
  • Samsung Galaxy A5 (2016)4947
  • Samsung Galaxy A51897
The Galaxy A5 (2016) is a sizeable upgrade over its predecessor in terms of overall performance. You won't get to enjoy graphic-intensive games at fluid framerates, but the bigger issue is that you can get better performance for less money.
At its current price point, we would have liked a Snapdragon 808 to be at the heart of the A5. The HTC One A9 is in a similar boat - too pricey for its S617 chipset - but that's no excuse as LG, Xiaomi and OnePlus found a way to offer you more bang for your buck.

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