The Nubia Red Magic 3 Review: A 90Hz Gaming Phone With Active Cooling
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 27, 2019 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- ZTE
- Nubia
- Snapdragon 855
- Nubia RedMagic 3
Machine Learning Inference Performance
AIMark 3
AIMark makes use of various vendor SDKs to implement the benchmarks. This means that the end-results really aren’t a proper apples-to-apples comparison, however it represents an approach that actually will be used by some vendors in their in-house applications or even some rare third-party app.
In AIMark, the Red Magic 3 performs alongside the top Snapdragon 855 devices on the market, which is again a good sign of the software optimisations of the phone’s BSP.
AIBenchmark 3
AIBenchmark takes a different approach to benchmarking. Here the test uses the hardware agnostic NNAPI in order to accelerate inferencing, meaning it doesn’t use any proprietary aspects of a given hardware except for the drivers that actually enable the abstraction between software and hardware. This approach is more apples-to-apples, but also means that we can’t do cross-platform comparisons, like testing iPhones.
We’re publishing one-shot inference times. The difference here to sustained performance inference times is that these figures have more timing overhead on the part of the software stack from initialising the test to actually executing the computation.
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI CPU
We’re segregating the AIBenchmark scores by execution block, starting off with the regular CPU workloads that simply use TensorFlow libraries and do not attempt to run on specialized hardware blocks.
In AI Benchmark’s CPU workloads, the RM3 fares average amongst its S855 counterparts, but nothing too much out of line that it’d be an issue.
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI INT8
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI FP16
AIBenchmark 3 - NNAPI FP32
On the INT8, FP16 and FP32 side, the RM3 performs very well and is amongst the top performing phones. This advantage should simply be due to the RM3 having the latest software stack employed.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
31 Comments
View All Comments
abufrejoval - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
Nice to read that the fan can be turned off without any negative effect.Already wishing that rubber cases might actually cover that "dust pipe".
Is there any indication of the USB-C speed or if it supports display port alt mode?
Does the device support developer mode and an unlocked boot-loader?
tiwi1391 - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
Have the RM3. It supports developer mode (currently using it to speed up animations), but I didn't look into the bootloader. XDA have a small RM3 community that could answer that question.nerdydesi - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
Yes, I've unlocked the bootloader, rooted my device and installed twrp. No custom roms yet though as far as I know.Wardrive86 - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
Where i think Nvidia had it right, back in the days of the Tegra Note 7, was shipping with the ability to map a gamepad to any game. If its a gaming phone it needs this capabilityXex360 - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
We live in strange times, cheaper phones are the premium ones and expensive ones have less features and design flaws.PeachNCream - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
I agree that taken in the context of the Black Shark 2 review, the Red Magic 3 looks considerably better in all aspects. It further detracts from any possible value the BS2 might offer.Total Meltdowner - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
It's all the same crap. "gaming phone" is just a new marketing term.Release a phone with some INNOVATION. They are all the same and it's boring.
Try a 12000mAH battery
Maybe make the phone like a lego kit where you can continuously upgrade the pieces over time.
Anything to make your phone stand out from the others may be worth the risk.
PeachNCream - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
I vaguely recall there was a lego-like phone project that allowed modular replacement of various sub-components, but it never made it into production. Like you, I agree that a larger battery would be a useful feature. I miss the days of removable back panels that could be replaced with a thicker/bigger panel to allow double or triple the battery capacity.ingwe - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
I think the real thing with a phone that has removable parts is that the interfaces just take up a lot of room that could be going to other things. When it comes down to have 2/3 or less of the battery capacity (at the same size phone) with a replaceable battery vs a non replaceable battery.patel21 - Friday, September 27, 2019 - link
Actually MOTO Z series was really innovative on this part, but I guess people didn't rewarded their LEGO-ability.