What Is The AnTuTu Benchmark And What It Means

While talking about smartphones and gadgets, you may come across an “AnTuTu score” represented by a large number. This number is unique for each model, may it be an Android device or an iPhone.

Those who do not know what this number represents can make a purchase decision without knowing how fast the device is, especially when compared to so many other phone options in the market. This is where the AnTuTu benchmark score comes in.

AnTuTu is one of the few benchmarks used to rank a device amongst so many mobile devices available in its category. It tests the different components and performance parameters of the device through tests and assigns a score to individual components based on how it handles them. In the end, the individual scores are accumulated to assign a grand, overall AnTuTu score.

In this guide, you will learn in-depth about what the AnTuTu benchmark is, what it tests, and what it represents in the mobile phone market.

What is the AnTuTu score?

The AnTuTu score is an accumulated score for a device it has achieved against a benchmark. By definition, a benchmark is a point of reference or a standard against which all other things are measured. Therefore, the AnTuTu score is a number scored by the device against the best-performing (hypothetical) device in its category.

The AnTuTu benchmark test stresses different components of a device and assigns a score to the individual components. The greater the score, the better-performing device it is. In the end, all the scores are added up to generate the ultimate AnTuTu score.

This benchmark is used to rank a device amongst its peers to determine which device performs better than which one. Since there are so many Android and iOS devices in the smartphone sector, the AnTuTu scores help in placing the device in ranking according to its performance.

Also read: List of best mobile phone processors on AnTuTu ranking

Download AnTuTu Benchmark

If you head over to the Google Play Store and search for AnTuTu, you will find that the app is not available there anymore. This is because Google removed it from the store. The rumors are that it was removed because it is a Chinese application linked to Cheetah Mobile. However, the official statement is that the app violated its policy.

That said, the app is still available on the Apple App Store.

Regardless, you can still download the AnTuTu Benchmark application directly from the official website. It can be downloaded for Android, iOS, Ubuntu, and Windows devices. Use the following steps to download and install the AnTuTu Benchmark application on your Android devices:

1. Open the AnTuTu Benchmark downloads page using a web browser.

2. Click the Download button with the Android icon.

   

   Note: It is recommended that you also download the 3D app as well, which performs 3D testing and provides better rendering results. This app is available as standard and the Lite edition for phones with relatively lower specs.

3. If prompted that the file is unsafe, click “Download anyway” to continue.

   

4. Once downloaded, run the .APK file.

5. If prompted for permission, allow third-party APK files to install apps from the device’s settings.

After performing these steps, the AnTuTu Benchmark app will be installed on your Android device. You may then proceed to perform the test.

How to perform the AnTuTu Benchmark test?

Once you have downloaded and installed the AnTuTu Benchmark application on your device, follow these steps to perform a test. Note that the test can take some time to finish, and ensure that your device has ample battery remaining since the test consumes a lot of processing power.

1. Launch the AnTuTu Benchmark app.

2. Inside the app, click “Test Now.”

   

   The app will now begin performing various tests, and the screen will change quite a few times. Let the phone rest to finish the test. During this time, you should be able to see the test’s progress.

3. Once the test is complete, you will be able to see the accumulated and individual results, as in this image:

   

At this point, you can click on the individual test results to see a detailed breakdown of the score. This way, you will know which component performs better, and which one lacks.

What the AnTuTu Benchmark tests

I talked about the AnTuTu Benchmark testing different components of the phone and assigning them scores based on their performance. But what are these different components?

The following is what you will find when the AnTuTu Benchmark has performed its tests and presented you with the scores.

Overall score

At the top of the results, you will find the overall score. This will be the accumulated score from the different components the AnTuTu app has tested your device for.

This is also the number you will find on most mobile-comparison websites, and also how the phones are ranked globally. For example, if my device’s score is 1,000,000, and another device’s score is 1,000,001, then officially, the other device is slightly superior to mine in terms of performance. Or if the other device’s score is 2,000,000, then it is perhaps twice as fast as mine.

That being said, these scores aren’t a hundred percent accurate and can sometimes deviate from their actual values. However, they do provide the ballpark of where the device lies on the global performance chart for mobile phones.

CPU score

The CPU score, as the name suggests, is a performance number assigned to your device’s CPU. The CPU score includes the output of CPU Mathematical Operations, CPU Common Algorithms, and CPU Multi-Core.

The CPU score indicates how quickly commands are processed by your phone. Most of the computation is handled by the CPU, and everything on your phone will be processed quickly.

Naturally, performance won’t be much impacted by CPU speed after a certain point. However, when running more demanding apps, such as sophisticated games, a fast CPU will definitely be useful.

GPU score

The next component to get tested is the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). The AnTuTu Benchmark tests and scores the output of graphical components like OpenGL and Vulkan, depending on your device. The score assigned to the device’s GPU means how well it displays 2D and 3D graphics.

The AnTuTu app runs a series of 2D and 3D animations to test the GPU, which often also results in the device getting hotter, and determines how well the hardware performs. The GPU score represents how well it handled the graphics rendering, whether it stuttered or not, and the latency of the GPU.

Memory (RAM) score

MEM, or memory score calculates the output of RAM Access, ROM APP IO, ROM Sequential Read and Write, and ROM Random Access. The greater the MEM score, the greater the performance of the memory.

Since RAM is a volatile memory, it is not a permanent storage space. Therefore, it constantly needs to read and write to and from the ROM, or the storage. The faster it reads and writes, the faster your phone’s response will be. Also, since RAM is constantly being used by the device, it is a crucial part of the device, and therefore, matters significantly in the device’s overall performance.

UX score

The UX score, or the “User Experience” score is based on the output of the Data Security, Data Processing, Image Processing, User Experience, and Video CTS and Decode tests. All of these subcomponents add to the user experience.

This is the score that indicates the user experience of the device in the actual world. This is the best option if you were to base your decision on any one of the four sub-scores for judging the performance of a phone. The user experience is what counts most while the phone is in your hand.

Other AnTuTu tests

Apart from these scores, the AnTuTu Benchmark application is also capable of performing other tests, that follow the same scoring pattern, and these include:

• Verification – Confirms the hardware details of the phone and confirms the device is authentic by cross-checking with the specs provided by the manufacturer.
• AI Test – Requires AITuTu Benchmark to work. It tests the artificial intelligence capabilities of your phone.
• My Device – Gives you information about the different hardware components of your phone. You can run further tests from within this section.
• HTML5 Test – Tests the phone’s browser performance by measuring browsing abilities.
• Stress Test is for checking your phone’s ability of heat dissipation and power consumption. It tells you how well your phone performs under high-load computing.
• Battery Test – Tests your phone’s battery performance.
• LCD Test – Displays a solid color for detecting faulty or dead pixels.
• Multi-Touch Test – Checks if the screen can detect multiple screen touches simultaneously.
• Grayscale Test – Displays boxes and gradients of greys to check screen abnormalities.
• Color Bar Test – Displays boxes and gradients of colors to check the screen for abnormalities.
• Controllable Area Test – Allows screen testing for touch detection and determining dead areas.

AnTuTu versions

Like all apps and software, the AnTuTu Benchmark also came out in different versions. Each version introduced new features, which essentially meant that it performed a new type of testing, or made changes to the old methods.

The table below briefly describes the different AnTuTu versions released over time and what each of them brought with them:

Version	Released	Characteristics
1	2011	CPU performance, 2D / 3D graphics, SD read/write, and Database IO.
2	2011	Support for double core. A new 3D benchmark that better shows game performance. New OpenGL-based 2D benchmark.
3	26-11-2012	Benchmark to User Experience (UX): MultiTask and Dalvik. Support for octa-core. Support OpenGL ES 3.0. New scene in 3DRating Benchmark. Improved classification of Memory and I/O.
4	04-09-2013	Benchmark to User Experience (UX):MultiTask and Dalvik. Support for octa-core. Support OpenGL ES 3.0. New scene in 3DRating Benchmark. Improved classification of Memory and I/O.
5	28-08-2014	CPU single-threaded performance testing New engine graphic performance: 2D(Cocos2D) – 3D(Havok). New test for 64-bit CPU. New test HTML 5. Support for Android Runtime (ART). Update the algorithm of the total score. Unify the criteria of Antutu X(prevent fraud and cheating).
6	03-12-2015	New designed 3D Testing Scenes based on Unity3D 5.0: Garden and Marooned. Add new UX testing items and increase UX testing proportion. New CPU Testing Added (based on the majority use of a single core). New Score Proportion. Cross-platform.
7	01-02-2018	New designed 3D test scenes: Refinery and Coastline. Support OpenGL ES 3.1 + AEP. Support Tessellation and Shadow. New UX tests that better reflect real-world use cases (Scroll, WebView and QR code). New score proportion. One tap to verify your device. In-depth device info about battery temperature, battery level, and CPU load changes.
8	17-10-2019	Introduces new Vulkan test scene- Terracotta Warriors. Updates all the test items in the Memory test. Includes the display of hardware details on the benchmark results page. Includes CPU architecture info in the “My Device” section. Fully supports Android Q. Fixed incorrect display of camera parameters on some multi-camera devices. Other improvements and optimizations.
9	22-03-2021	New designed 3D test scenes: Refinery and Coastline. Support OpenGL ES 3.1 + AEP. Support Tessellation and Shadow. New UX tests that better reflect real-world use cases (Scroll, WebView, and QR code). New score proportion. One tap to verify your device. In-depth device info about battery temperature, battery level, and CPU load changes.

Can the AnTuTu Benchmark scores be trusted?

Although the benchmark scores are not precisely accurate and do not reflect real-world scenarios, they can be used to rank devices amongst other AnTuTu-tested devices, since the platform to test them all is the same. Since they are tested with the same technology, for the same components, under the same circumstances, it is safe to trust most AnTuTu scores.

That being said, certain manufacturers have been caught in the past to manipulate AnTuTu scores by cheating. This practice of cheating would increase the scores of their devices, implicating a better performance, when in fact, they were sub-par.

AnTuTu took strict actions against the manufacturers that were caught cheating, making the scoring system trustable again.