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Following the highly anticipated unveiling of the Samsung Galaxy S4 last week, the tech world is now busy figuring out the best handset across all the platforms in the market. While the hunt is still on, the very first showdown will be obviously between the new Galaxy S4 and the Apple iPhone 5.

When it comes to comparing the Galaxy S4 with other high-end smartphones currently available in the market, the latest Samsung offering indeed looks better with features like a sharper screen, bigger battery and a much enhanced processor to name a few. But the question is, with all these improvements on board, how much better is the new Galaxy than its rivals?

Primate Labs has come up with an analysis of the Geekbench 2 scores for the Samsung Galaxy S4, weighing it against some other popular smartphones like the iPhone 5, HTC One, LG Nexus 4, BlackBerry Z10 and also the Galaxy S3.

As per the benchmark analysis, the Galaxy S4 is a lot faster than the other listed smartphones. The new handset’s score of 3,163 was almost twice that of the Apple iPhone 5 with 1,596. Here’s what John Poole of Primate Labs has to say in his analysis:

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is twice as fast as the Samsung Galaxy S3. Given that the Samsung Galaxy S3 is less than a year old, that's a remarkable achievement. I am amazed at how quickly smartphone technology is improving.

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is also twice as fast as the Apple iPhone 5. Apple has improved performance dramatically in the past (there was 2.5x increase in performance from the iPhone 4S to the iPhone 5). Will they be able to make a similar improvement for the next iPhone?

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In the analysis, HTC One stands second with a score of 2,687, followed by the LG Nexus 4 with 2,040. The Samsung Galaxy S3 variant with the Exynos 4412 at 1.4 GHz (4 cores) comes fourth, scoring 1,717 while the iPhone 5, powered by the Apple A6 processor at 1.3 GHz (2 cores) gets listed at the fifth spot managing a score of 1,596.

Although the benchmarks show that the iPhone 5 is slower than some of its competitors, there are certain points to consider.

“Apple's close integration of software and hardware leads to significant performance gains that Android phones can't easily replicate,” says a MacRumors report.

Redmond Pie has also made the same argument, saying “since Apple molds its software around its hardware and vice-versa, the Cupertino company is better able to achieve a smooth operating system, and can thus afford to be a little more conservative about how much power it decides to place within.”

The report also argues that the iPhone 5 is over six months old, and apart from the Galaxy S3, all other smartphones in the list are considerably new.

The benchmark analysis in question only tested the Samsung Galaxy S4 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 SoC, and according to Poole, Primate Labs can’t say how the Galaxy S4 with the new Exynos 5 Octa SoC will perform.

However, considering the fact that the Galaxy S3 with Exynos 4412 at 1.4 GHz (4 cores) is proved faster than the other variant with the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8960 at 1.5 GHz (2 cores), Poole believes that the Geekbench score will be similar in terms of the Galaxy S4, sporting 8-core Exynos processor, as well.

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