Well this sets the cats among the pigeons. Prior to its launch on Sunday, leaks appeared proclaiming the jaw dropping performance of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. Now the phones have been officially announced we have the first formal figures, and they’re also hugely impressive.

German site Computer Base has done extensive tests with respected benchmarking software GeekBench, 3DMark and GFX Bench 3 and it makes for fascinating reading.

Both the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge use Samsung’s own Exynos 7420 chipset and the headline result is its multi-core performance is 56% faster than the Apple A8 chipset inside the iPhone 6. Noticeably it is also 15% faster than the Snapdragon 810 chipset inside almost all the S6 and S6 rivals, including theHTC One M9.

Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and iPhone 6 – proportional comparison – image credits Samsung and Apple

Apple does still have an edge in single core performance of 13% over the Exynos 7420, but its is again comprehensively beaten when it comes to gaming where the Samsung chip is 15-20% faster across both 3DMark and GFXBench 3.

That said the Snapdragon 810 does edge out the 7420 here while top dog is Nvidia’s largely ignored Tegra K1 chip, which has so far only featured in Nvidia’s own SHIELD devices and HTC’s Nexus 9 tablet.

Graph courtesy of Computer Base

Read more – Galaxy S6 vs Galaxy S6 Edge: The Differences Between The New Samsung Smartphones

Does It Matter? Yes and No

Of course the obvious point to make when looking at synthetic benchmarks is: should we care? And there are strong points on both sides.

Arguments For No

The biggest aspect counting against benchmarks is when they are comparing devices running different platforms.

As such, while the Exynos chip may enjoy benchmark dominance over Apple’s A8, no-one will really care if the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus still run like lightning – which they do. In fact I’d argue Apple’s latest phones currently remain the fastest and smoothest real world user experience available.

In addition top of the range phones are already fast. Does making improvements on incredibly quick phones like the Snapdragon 805-basedGalaxy Note 4 and Nexus 6 really matter? Surely it is more about software optimisation at this point.

Exynos 7 chipset – image credit Samsung

Arguments For Yes

Then again what the arguments against miss is something very interesting: the shifting landscape.

Apple may be an island with its control over hardware and software, but it is still very much reliant on Samsung as a chipset partner and the innovations between the two companies will clearly rub off. Both memory and fabrication efficiencies seen in the 7420 chipset are expected to make it into the A9 chip for the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, so it is a glimpse into the future.

Read more – Samsung Galaxy S6 And Galaxy S6 Edge: Best And Worst Features

Secondly the fact Samsung (and to a lesser extent Nvidia) is now clearly a major rival to Qualcomm is great news. Until the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge yield issues meant that ever since the Galaxy S2 Samsung has been forced to source the majority of its chipsets from Qualcomm for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note ranges.

As such Android and Windows smartphones for years have been largely identical internally and it has felt like Qualcomm has been resting on its laurels as generational improvements have become more incremental and issues surrounding overheating have grown.

So if Samsung is now able to challenge Qualcomm the smartphone and tablet market once again opens right up with a new supplier. An innovation race follows and differentiators grow. The technology landscape is always better off with intense competition.

Unless this happens…