Device performance is important, and with Amazon’s latest Fire TV being a step back in performance from the 2nd generation model, I thought I would benchmark as much of the ecosystem as possible to take a little closer look at the performance of different Amazon Fire OS devices.

My plan with this article is to make it evergreen, updating it as new hardware is tested and released, or new benchmarks are released.

Tested Hardware

My starting point is to test every piece of hardware I own, but I hope to buy/borrow other hardware to expand things going forward. If you’d like to contribute an older Fire tablet (or a Fire Phone!) to the mix, please let me know. I’d love to get complete coverage of the Fire OS ecosystem.

CPU GPU Fire OS Version Android API Level 2011 Kindle Fire 7 TI 4430HS

2X Cortex-A9

1.0 GHz PowerVR SGX540

304 MHz

OpenGL ES XXX 6.3.4

(Current Version Benchmarks Do Not Run on This Android 2.3.3 Based OS) 10 2012 Kindle Fire HD 8.9 TI 4470HS

2X Cortex-A9

1.5 GHz PowerVR SGX544

384 MHz

OpenGL ES XXX 8.5.1

(Current Version Benchmarks Do Not Run on This Android 4.0.3 Based OS) 15 2013 Kindle Fire HDX 7 Qualcomm 800

4X Krait 400

2.2 GHz Adreno 330

450 MHz

OpenGL ES 3.0 4.5.5.3 19 2016 Fire HD 8 Mediatek MT8163V/B

4X Cortex-A53

1.3 GHz Mali T720-MP2

650 MHz

OpenGL ES 5.6.0.0 22 2017 Fire HD 8 Same As 2016 Same As 2016 Same As 2016 22 2014 Fire TV Stick Broadcom BCM28155

2X A9 @1.0 GHz VideoCore IV Capri VC4

??? MHz

OpenGL ES 2.0 5.2.6.3 22 2016 Fire TV Stick

MediaTek MT8127D

4X Cortex-A7

1.3 GHz Mali 450 MP4

??? MHz

OpenGL ES 2.0 5.2.6.3 22 2015 Fire TV MediaTek MT8173C

2X A72 @ 2 GHz

2X A53 @ 1.573GHz PowerVR GX6250

??? MHz

OpenGL ES 3.1 5.2.6.3 22 2017 Fire TV Amlogic

S905Z

4X Cortex A53 @ 1.5 GHz Mali 450 MP3

??? MHz

OpenGL ES 2.0 6.2.1.3 25 2018 Fire TV Cube* Amlogic

S905Z

4X Cortex A53 @ 1.5 GHz Mali 450 MP3

??? MHz

OpenGL ES 2.0 6.2.2.2 25

* I do not intend to spend my money to benchmark the 2018 Fire TV Cube since it’s basically the same hardware as the 2017 Fire TV, with the following exceptions: The 2017 Fire TV throttles due to power/heat limitations more than the 2018 Fire TV Cube, and Alexa’s listening task consistently takes CPU time that is otherwise available on the 2017 Fire TV.

Benchmarks Performed

The next question is what benchmarks should I use? Since this site has an obvious gaming focus, I picked 2 graphics benchmarks and one CPU only benchmark, and I used the latest version of each one.

Geekbench 4.2.3 GFXBench 4.0.13 3DMark 2.0.4580

Testing Methodology

In each test, the device is tested from a clean boot. Some devices are in active use in our household, and as such will not be restored to defaults prior to testing. When I have an opportunity to reset these devices to default and retest, I will do so. Finally, to the extent that new OS releases change performance, my plan to leave both new and old release in the results for comparison.

Battery powered devices will be fully charged, then disconnected from power during the test. Fire TV devices will be tested at 1080p. I will add 4k testing in the future for capable devices, but I don’t currently have a good setup for this.

Update Notes

7/28/18 Updates Added 2017 Fire TV Added 2018 Fire TV Cube with note that I don’t intend to benchmark it Updated Geekbench from 4.2.0 to 4.2.3 Updated 3DMark to build 4580 from 4574 Updated devices running 5.2.6.1 to 5.2.6.3 Retested against OS and software updates to verify that results didn’t change. Some performance improvements were seen with Fire OS 5.2.6.3 and updates were made.



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