The Huawei Mate 30 Pro Review: Top Hardware without Google?
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 27, 2019 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Huawei
- Kirin 990
- Mate 30 Pro
GPU Performance & Power
In terms of 3D gaming and GPU performance, we expect the Kirin 990 and the Mate 30 Pro to do quite well. The GPU itself is not only a large step up from the MP10 configuration on the Kirin 980, but also larger than Samsung’s Exynos 9820 MP12 implementation. Huawei also claimed to be able to achieve better performance than the Snapdragon 855, which seems quite plausible. The remaining question is how power efficiency ends up and how the Mate 30 Pro’s thermal management is able to sustain the performance of the chipset for prolonged durations.
On the 3DMark Physics test which is actually a CPU benchmark within a 3D workload, we see that the Mate 30 Pro is showcasing some extremely high results, actually taking the top spot amongst all devices in the market. The benchmark should be mainly memory intensive and the Cortex A76’s strong prefetchers as well as the Kirin 990’s strong memory subsystem would be a possible explanation for the top performance results.
Switching over to the graphics workload, the Mate 30 Pro makes a very large leap compared to previous generation Huawei flagships, but falls short of some of the better Snapdragon 855 devices as well as Apple’s newest iPhone 11 lineup.
In GFXBench Aztec, the Mate 30 Pro takes an ever so slight lead ahead of Snapdragon 855 devices, but still falls short of Apple’s new architectures.
| GFXBench Aztec High Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power) |
||||
| Mfc. Process | FPS | Avg. Power (W) |
Perf/W Efficiency |
|
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Warm | N7P | 26.14 | 3.83 | 6.82 fps/W |
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Cold / Peak | N7P | 34.00 | 6.21 | 5.47 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Warm | N7 | 19.32 | 3.81 | 5.07 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Cold / Peak | N7 | 26.59 | 5.56 | 4.78 fps/W |
| Mate 30 Pro (Kirin 990 4G) | N7 | 16.50 | 3.96 | 4.16 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Snapdragon 855) | N7 | 16.17 | 4.69 | 3.44 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Exynos 9820) | 8LPP | 15.59 | 4.80 | 3.24 fps/W |
The power characteristics of the chip are quite good and clearly a step ahead of both the Snapdragon 855 and Exynos 9820, sporting higher performance as well as lower absolute power.
| GFXBench Aztec Normal Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power) |
||||
| Mfc. Process | FPS | Avg. Power (W) |
Perf/W Efficiency |
|
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Warm | N7P | 73.27 | 4.07 | 18.00 fps/W |
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Cold / Peak | N7P | 91.62 | 6.08 | 15.06 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Warm | N7 | 55.70 | 3.88 | 14.35 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Cold / Peak | N7 | 76.00 | 5.59 | 13.59 fps/W |
| Mate 30 Pro (Kirin 990 4G) | N7 | 41.68 | 4.01 | 10.39 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Snapdragon 855) | N7 | 40.63 | 4.14 | 9.81 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Exynos 9820) | 8LPP | 40.18 | 4.62 | 8.69 fps/W |
We see similar results in the Normal 1080p variant of the benchmark.
| GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power) |
||||
| Mfc. Process | FPS | Avg. Power (W) |
Perf/W Efficiency |
|
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Warm | N7P | 100.58 | 4.21 | 23.89 fps/W |
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Cold / Peak | N7P | 123.54 | 6.04 | 20.45 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Warm | N7 | 76.51 | 3.79 | 20.18 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Cold / Peak | N7 | 103.83 | 5.98 | 17.36 fps/W |
| Mate 30 Pro (Kirin 990 4G) | N7 | 75.69 | 5.04 | 15.01 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Snapdragon 855) | N7 | 70.67 | 4.88 | 14.46 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Exynos 9820) | 8LPP | 68.87 | 5.10 | 13.48 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon 845) | 10LPP | 61.16 | 5.01 | 11.99 fps/W |
| Mate 20 Pro (Kirin 980) | N7 | 54.54 | 4.57 | 11.93 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9 (Exynos 9810) | 10LPP | 46.04 | 4.08 | 11.28 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Snapdragon 835) | 10LPE | 38.90 | 3.79 | 10.26 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Exynos 8895) | 10LPE | 42.49 | 7.35 | 5.78 fps/W |
In Manhattan 3.1, what does change is that the device’s power usage goes up from 4 to 5W. Such a change usually happens when the GPU and SoC is able to achieve a higher utilisation of the silicon. Still, it’s slightly ahead of the Snapdragon 855 in terms of performance and efficiency.
| GFXBench T-Rex Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Active Power) |
||||
| Mfc. Process | FPS | Avg. Power (W) |
Perf/W Efficiency |
|
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Warm | N7P | 289.03 | 4.78 | 60.46 fps/W |
| iPhone 11 Pro (A13) Cold / Peak | N7P | 328.90 | 5.93 | 55.46 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Warm | N7 | 197.80 | 3.95 | 50.07 fps/W |
| iPhone XS (A12) Cold / Peak | N7 | 271.86 | 6.10 | 44.56 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Snapdragon 855) | N7 | 167.16 | 4.10 | 40.70 fps/W |
| Mate 30 Pro (Kirin 990 4G) | N7 | 152.27 | 4.34 | 35.08 fps/W |
| Galaxy S9+ (Snapdragon 845) | 10LPP | 150.40 | 4.42 | 34.00 fps/W |
| Galaxy 10+ (Exynos 9820) | 8LPP | 166.00 | 4.96 | 33.40fps/W |
| Galaxy S9 (Exynos 9810) | 10LPP | 141.91 | 4.34 | 32.67 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Snapdragon 835) | 10LPE | 108.20 | 3.45 | 31.31 fps/W |
| Mate 20 Pro (Kirin 980) | N7 | 135.75 | 4.64 | 29.25 fps/W |
| Galaxy S8 (Exynos 8895) | 10LPE | 121.00 | 5.86 | 20.65 fps/W |
Finally, in T-Rex, the results are in line with the Snapdragon 855, although this time around it doesn’t manage to pass the competitor.
Overall, the Kirin 990 and the Mate 30 Pro are good performers. In general, I’d say Huawei and HiSilicon were able to match and sometimes slightly beat the Snapdragon 855 in terms of performance all while maintaining good efficiency. In my prolonged testing I saw the phone max out at a peak skin temperature of 45°C which wasn’t too bad. What was odd though is that this hotspot was very pronounced towards the top side of the phone’s frame – so when you’re gaming in landscape mode this going to be always touching your palm or fingers when holding the phone.
Whilst the results are good in context of the competition this year, there’s the issue that we expect the next generation of Snapdragon and Exynos devices to easily be able to top the Kirin 990, and of course it’s still far behind what Apple devices are able to showcase in terms of performance as the A12 and A13 were able to sport outstanding generational increases.
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invinciblegod - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
What you say is true, but there is also no international law that says US has to do business with Huawei if the US doesn't like what Huawei is doing. As such, the US decided to ban Huawei so that other companies will do what the US wants them to do (or not do). Basically, if you want to do business in China, you must in general follow China's instructions. If you want to do business in the US, you must follow US instructions. To do both you must be able to balance the two without angering either, which I guess is becoming harder.airdrifting - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
I was replying to the previous post which implies no one is buying from Huawei except Iran.invinciblegod - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
Also, like it or not, the US is currently the center of the world, otherwise US ban of Huawei would have literally no effect. No one cares if say Iran bans your product, but many people do care if the US bans your product (or hinders it in some way).obama gaming - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
except... it doesn't really have that much of an effect. Huawei still remains as the largest telecommunications company and their stocks haven't drastically crashed either...invinciblegod - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
Didn't they say they have a year supply of parts? If that is the case, then it would be a year at minimum for there to be any major effect. Also, to amend my previous statement, the US has not actually banned Huawei yet because they keep giving them 3 month exemptions which basically pauses the ban. Because the exemptions keep happening, people are more relaxed and think it will continue forever, sort of like Brexit.s.yu - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
You are completely correct, without continuously running for over a year, the ban is almost entirely symbolistic.webdoctors - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
LOL, that's because the expectation is they'll get a reprieve like ZTE did. If USA went nuclear and just banned Huawei from the SWIFT banking system, Huawei stock would be worthless over night.USA has a huge number of ways of damaging a corporation, much more than China. China can only ban you from selling in China, USA can essentially ban you from doing business in the entire world using their 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon if they want to go nuclear.
s.yu - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
"China can only ban you from selling in China“Don't underestimate the Party, they stalled anti-trust probes of other companies twice(Motorola and Qualcomm) in retaliation to investigations into Huawei's IP theft and each time did a lot of damage. Their unique advantage is that they could hit you in ways you never thought possible.
s.yu - Thursday, November 28, 2019 - link
"There is no international law says you can not sell phones to Iran, US can whine and moan all she wants but Huawei is free to do business with whoever they want because they are not a US company"Says the Huawei drone?
Then who gave the CCP the right to block the Motorola-Nokia Siemens and NXP-Qualcomm mergers incurring hundreds of millions of damages when all the rest of the world gave the green light? None of those companies are Chinese.
alufan - Wednesday, November 27, 2019 - link
whole Family have been Huawei users for the last few years however not any more the mate 20 pros curve was just tolerable this one seems way to much and yes lack of banking apps etc is a total deal breaker for us