nubia Red Magic 5S review

Synthetic benchmarks

To our surprise, the Red Magic 5S sports the same chipset as its predecessor. The same Snapdragon 865 SoC is in charge of things and we have mixed feelings about that. Flagships coming out in the second half of 2020 are all equipped with the latest and greatest from Qualcomm while the Red Magic 5S settles for the non-plus version of the chip. On the other hand, the difference between the Snapdragon 865 and the 865+ are rather minimal so the end user won't feel much of a difference in the upgrade.

The Snapdragon 865, based on the 7nm+ EUV manufacturing process, comes with an octa-core CPU employing one big Kryo 585 core ticking at 2.84GHz, three of the same cores running at 2.42GHz and 4x Kryo 585 cores taking care of the not-so-demanding tasks with 1.8GHz clock speed. An Adreno 650 GPU is used for graphically-intensive tasks.

Also, nubia is making a great deal out of the memory configurations. The RAM can go up to 16GB LPDDR5, which is about 1.5x faster than LPDDR4X memory. For storage, the Red Magic 5G can go up to 256GB UFS 3.1, and that last bit is more than welcome since it decreases the load times of games. Not by a lot but it's reassuring that you can return to battle faster if something goes sideways.

Now let's take a look at the raw performance of the phone. We ran all the tests in the high-performance mode in Game Space but without the cooling fan.

GeekBench 4.4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  13517
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  13400
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  13171
• Huawei P40 Pro
  12848
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  12269
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3s
  11310
• Asus ROG Phone II (120Hz)
  10923

GeekBench 4.4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  4873
• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  4525
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  4320
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  4237
• Huawei P40 Pro
  3942
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3s
  3576
• Asus ROG Phone II (120Hz)
  3510

GeekBench 5.1 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• nubia Red Magic 5S
  3386
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  3374
• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  3357
• Huawei P40 Pro
  3197
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  2703

GeekBench 5.1 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  975
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  927
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  902
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  886
• Huawei P40 Pro
  780

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  601858
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  573276
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  557210
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  500114
• Huawei P40 Pro
  496356
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3s
  495229
• Asus ROG Phone II (120Hz)
  483239

GFX 3.1 Car scene (onscreen)

Higher is better

• nubia Red Magic 5S
  48
• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  48
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  42
• Asus ROG Phone II (120Hz)
  40
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3s
  37
• Huawei P40 Pro
  31
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  24

3DMark SSE OpenGL ES 3.1 1440p

Higher is better

• Asus ROG Phone 3 (144Hz)
  7645
• nubia Red Magic 5S
  7545
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  7127
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  6819
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3s
  6196
• Asus ROG Phone II (120Hz)
  6175
• Huawei P40 Pro
  6062

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1440p

Higher is better

• nubia Red Magic 5S
  6678
• OnePlus 8 Pro (120Hz, 1440p)
  6425
• Galaxy S20+ (120Hz, 1080p)
  6354
• Huawei P40 Pro
  5637
• ZTE nubia Red Magic 3s
  5434
• Asus ROG Phone II (120Hz)
  5152

Sustained performance

Sustained performance is probably the most important test on a gaming smartphone. With powerful hardware like the Snapdragon 865, phones struggle to keep the temps low enough so the CPU doesn't have to throttle too soon. After all, CPU throttling on phones is inevitable, the time it takes to tone down is what makes them stand out.

The Red Magic 5G did great in our CPU torture test and since the hardware and the active cooling system haven't changed, we expected similar if not identical results. And we were right. For about an hour-long stress test, the handset's CPU throttled to 93% of its performance towards the very end of the stress test. The back panel and the aluminum frame were noticeably hot. And keep in mind that we've tested this with the cooling fan on and with the Game Enhancement feature turned on for the CPU and GPU.

Now with the so-called Ice Dock, the software didn't detect any thermal throttling at all. The back panel of the phone was relatively cooler as well, at least the part around the camera where the chipset is located. The aluminum frame remained hot, whatsoever. But we had some other issues with the Ice Dock.

First of all, you can't run the cooling accessory without being plugged to the charger. The good news is that there are two USB-C connectors so you can charger your phone while the device is attached and working. Which leads us to our second complaint. With the provided USB-C connector making the bridge between the phone and the cooler doesn't allow a lot of wiggle room. When plugged into the phone, the Ice Dock can only be placed around the battery rendering it useless because the chipset is what needs the cooling. Take a look at the graph below.

Additionally, the clips that attach to the phone will always cover either the power button or the volume rocker. If you aren't charging the phone with the Ice Dock and you place it right below the camera module, it will cover the volume rocker. We've tested the Ice Dock while the phone is plugged into the charger and found no real advantages of the setup.

And finally, the Ice Dock doesn't seem to be making optimal contact with the phone's back surface. The dock is flat while the phone's back is curved making the contact surface really small. We would assume that a better design of both - the phone and the Ice Dock would do wonders. The good news is that the Ice Dock seems to work with other phones as well so you could make the case of buying an Ice Dock for your phone if it struggles to keep up with more demanding games.

Real-world gaming performance

There's no doubt that the Red Magic 5S will handle pretty much everything you throw at it in Google's Play store. But the real issue with Android games and high refresh rate displays is that the games don't support them. It will be hard to find a substantial amount of games that can run above 60Hz, let alone above 120Hz. Nubia promises that the developers team is working hard to bring more titles to the 144Hz world so Red Magic 5G and 5S users would take the most out of the 144Hz panel.

When we reviewed the Red Magic 5G, there were only a handful of games going above 90Hz so we are happy to see some other titles that make it to the list. We've tested Dead Trigger 2, Bullet Force and Into the Dead. All three games look great in 144Hz and the phone ran them smoothly without any hiccups. And besides, first-person shooter games usually provide the best buttery-smooth experience when it comes to HRR.

In addition to the aforementioned games, we've tested some other popular titles like Real Racing 3, Sky Force Reloaded capping at 120Hz, Call of Duty Mobile at 60Hz and PUBG Mobile going up to 60fps.

Real Racing 3 supports 144Hz displays, and the phone was able to maintain 144fps, and FPS stability was above 90%. The game ran super smoothly and gave us a glimpse of what the mobile gaming segment will offer in a few years as a standard. Hardcore PC gamers will appreciate the extra frames - everything is so much more responsive and fluent. Partly because of the 240Hz touch response time, of course.

A segment of the frame rate chart for Real Racing 3

Next down the list is Sky Force Reloaded - an arcade game with support for 120Hz. The results here were even better - an average of 120 frames per second and 98% FPS stability.

A segment of the frame rate chart for Sky Force: Reloaded

Call of Duty Mobile also ran very smoothly, but since it's capped at 60 frames per second, it's far from what you'd expect from a high-refresh-rate gaming experience. Still, the phone managed to hit that 60fps target and sustained it 100% of the time.

A segment of the frame rate chart for Call of Duty Mobile

And since PUBG Mobile is one of the most popular competitive games, we took it for a spin with two different settings. The first one is at maximum possible graphics (the game usually caps at 40fps with this setting) while the second session was at the lowest possible graphics settings so that the game can go up to 60fps. In both scenarios, the game ran smoothly with almost no FPS dips.

A segment of the frame rate for PUBG Mobile

The results from other games such as Mortal Kombat, Gear Club, Modern Combat 5, Shadow of Death, Hungry Dragon, Need For Speed No Limit and Shadowgun Legends were comparable if not identical - stable frames across the board running at the maximum possible frame limit, which in most cases was 60fps.

We were able to extract the detailed information like frame stability and, frames per second with the help of GameBench. A performance software that gives you all the geeky info you could imagine and each gaming session is saved on the cloud and always accessible on their desktop website. The guys at GemBench have also tested the Chinese version of the popular PUBG Mobile game, which supports 90fps limit and they say this is the first smartphone to ever sustain these frames for this long.

A big reason for the great in-game performance would be the cooling system. There's a proper copper heatpipe connecting the cooling fan to the metal shield covering the SoC. The cooling fan itself has an intake vent on the left side of the frame and an exhaust vent on the right side pushing the hot air out. And between the heatpipe with the coolant inside slots a multi-layer graphite material and a thermal gel keeping all of this in place. And last, but not least, there's an aluminum plate that sits right between the back glass panel and the motherboard, which also helps with the heat dissipation.