Galaxy S20 benchmarks just leaked — and they make the iPhone 11 look great

The Galaxy S20 is supposed to be one of the fastest phones ever and one of the best phones of the year, thanks to its new Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor. So why are its newly leaked benchmark results so underwhelming?

According to GSMArena, the Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 Plus and Galaxy S20 Ultra have all gone through the Geekbench 5 benchmark, which is designed to measure overall performance. And it looks like the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max have nothing to fear.

Forget the Galaxy S20: This phone is going to steal the spotlight

The highest score turned in by a Galaxy S20 phone in this alleged round of testing was by the Korean version of the Galaxy S10 Plus with a mark of 925 on the single-core portion of Geekbench 5 and 3,230 on the multicore test. Compare those numbers to the iPhone 11 Pro, which hit marks of 1,334 and 3,517, respectively.

That's a pretty wide scoring gap between the Galaxy S20 Plus and its main rival.

Galaxy S20 Plus Geekbench 5 — (Image credit: Geekbench/GSMArena)

The regular Galaxy S20 allegedly scored just 922 on the single-core Geekbench 5 test and 3,103 on multicore, and the Galaxy S20 Ultra delivered a similar 919 and 3,193.

The strange part is that the presumed U.S. versions of these phones turned in erratic scores, with only the Galaxy S20 Plus approaching the performance of its Korean counterparts.

The U.S. Galaxy S20 and S20 Ultra turned in lower marks on both the single-core and dual-core Geekbench 5 tests, with the regular S20 mustering only 561 and 2,358 . And all of these handsets have 12GB of RAM according to the posted specs.

Back when we tested a reference design for the first round of Snapdragon 865 benchmarking, we saw better results. The device we used reached 934 on the single-core test and 3,463 on the multi-core portion. At least the latter score is much closer to the iPhone 11 Pro.

Of course, Geekbench 5 is just one test among many that we run to measure phone performance, including real-world tests like video editing. But Geekbench is still considered to be among the leading synthetic tests for phones.

With the Galaxy S20 launching February 11, we hope to bring you official benchmark results in the not-to-distant future. In the meantime, check out our Galaxy S20 hub for all the latest news and leaks on Samsung's next flagship phone.

Mark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. In addition to overseeing the direction of Tom's Guide, Mark specializes in covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer.