The OnePlus Nord CE3‘s successor has just been launched in India. Called the OnePlus Nord CE4, the handset comes with quite a few upgrades including the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset. Naturally, the new OnePlus Nord is expected to be better than its predecessor. How much better though? That’s what we will aim to find out in this OnePlus Nord CE4 vs Nord CE3 (review) performance comparison, conducted through a series of benchmarking apps and a gaming test.
| OnePlus Nord CE4 | OnePlus Nord CE3 |
| Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 782G SoC |
| 4nm octa-core CPU with four performance Cortex-A715 cores and four efficiency Cortex-A510 cores. | 6nm octa-core CPU with four performance Cortex-A78 cores and four efficiency Cortex-A55 cores. |
| Adreno 720 GPU | Adreno 642L GPU |
| 8GB LPDDR4X RAM + up to 256GB UFS 3.1 storage | up to 12GB LPDDR4X RAM + 256GB UFS 3.1 storage |
Table of Contents
AnTuTu
The OnePlus Nord CE4 got an overall score of 8,19,347 on AnTuTu, which is roughly 22 percent more than its predecessor. This means that the smartphone will offer better GPU and CPU performance compared to the OnePlus Nord CE3. That said, as indicated by the MEM score, the OnePlus Nord CE3 seems to possess faster memory than the latest Nord smartphone.
Geekbench
The OnePlus Nord CE4 also triumphs over the Nord CE3 on Geekbench; however, the difference is only marginal. The latter logged 1,122 and 2,831 scores in the single-core and multi-core tests respectively. The OnePlus Nord CE4, on the other hand, achieved 1,138 in the single-core test and 2,950 in the multi-core test. While the Nord CE4 should be more capable of handling tasks, the difference may not be easily perceivable in real-world usage.
CPU Throttle
The OnePlus Nord CE4 and Nord CE3 CPU Throttle performance is on par with each other. Both smartphones throttle equally under intense load running 50 threads for half an hour. For reference, the OnePlus Nord CE4 throttles 77 percent of its peak performance as per the CPU Throttle benchmark, whereas its predecessor maintained a performance level of 76 percent on the same test.
Gaming
To assess the gaming performance of the smartphones, we ran BGMI with ‘Very High’ graphics settings and ‘Max’ frame rates for 30 minutes each. Both devices handled the game equally well with no noticeable frame drops or stutter issues. Furthermore, their thermals and battery drop percentage after the game were comparable. The OnePlus Nord CE3 thermals increased by roughly six degrees, accompanied by an 8 percent reduction in battery life. In contrast, the OnePlus Nord CE4 battery life dropped by 7 percent, along with an 8-degree rise in thermal levels following the test.
Verdict
This concludes our OnePlus Nord CE4 vs Nord CE3 performance comparison. As evident, the OnePlus Nord CE4 comes with incremental improvements over its predecessor both on the performance front and in handling graphically demanding tasks. The handset also seems to be offering better battery efficiency compared to the Nord CE3. However, the difference is only marginal, and both devices exhibit similar CPU throttle performance under intense load. Nevertheless, the Nord CE3 appears to be marginally superior to its successor in thermal management.
Overall, if you are a OnePlus Nord CE3 user, you don’t have to upgrade to the OnePlus Nord CE4 solely for performance improvements.
