Now that the new 2020 Amazon Fire TV Stick 3 and Fire TV Stick Lite have been released, it’s time to see how they stack up against existing Fire TV models, past and present. While computational benchmark scores are by no means going to tell you how well a device will perform at real-world everyday tasks, they’re still helpful to understand how much raw power each Fire TV, Firestick, and Fire TV Cube have to offer, should you push them to their limits. I’ve run all 10 Fire TV models that have ever been released through 4 popular benchmarks that test their CPU, GPU, Memory, and more. Here are the results.
Each Fire TV was factory rest and fully updated to the latest software version available as of today. All devices were left idle for several hours prior to the test and rebooted for each new benchmark. I ran each benchmark 3 times on each device (yup, that’s 120 tests total) and have taken the average of the 2 highest scores. These are all newly run scores from the last 24 hours on the 1st, 2nd, & 3rd-gen Fire TV Stick, the Fire TV Stick Lite, the 1st & 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube, the Fire TV Stick 4K, the 1st & 2nd Fire TV boxes, and the 3rd-gen Fire TV pendant.
One of the most popular benchmarks is Geekbench, which runs a few dozen tests and provides results for both a single-core and all available CPU cores. It primarily taxes the device’s CPU, so it’s interesting that the Fire TV Stick Lite consistently scored ever so slightly better than the Fire TV Stick 3, even though they have the exact same CPU. This is likely due to the fact that the Fire TV Stick 3 has onboard Dolby decoding and TV/AV equipment control, which the Fire TV Stick Lite does not. One or both of those features probably take up a tiny bit of resources all the time, which is reflected in this benchmark score.
A much more prominent example of this kind of CPU overhead taken by a feature is with the 1st-gen Fire TV Cube and the 3rd-gen Fire TV, which, again, share the exact same CPU. Their single-core scores differ slightly, but there is a significant difference in their multi-core score because the 1st-gen Cube’s always-listing mics consume about half of a core at all times to detect the Alexa wake word. The 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube has a similar overhead requirement, but its powerful 6-cores have plenty of processing power to spare.
The AnTuTu benchmark is a cumulative score of its CPU, Memory, and UX tests. Like Geekbench, it heavily emphasizes the CPU (about 50% of the score), but unlike Geekbench, AnTuTu devotes a third of its score to the device’s memory performance. It’s interesting that The Fire TV Stick 3 outperforms the Fire TV Stick Lite by about 3% in this test. Looking at the score breakdown shows that the majority of that advantage was in the memory tests.
To confirm the results, I ran the PassMark memory and disk tests on the two new Firesticks and that test also showed an advantage for the Fire TV Stick 3 over the Fire TV Stick Lite, particularly with data write speeds. My guess is that either I got bad luck with the quality of memory/storage chips in my Fire TV Stick Lite or the two new models use slightly different components to help make up for the $10 price difference between them. The 1st-gen Fire TV could not complete this benchmark.
These next two benchmarks, 3DMark and GFXBench, both test the devices GPU. The GPU is primarily used for games, so these scores represent each device’s gaming capabilities, but the GPU does play a part in rendering parts of the interface and how smoothly it feels when quickly navigating around. The two new Fire TV Sticks are beaten only by the 2nd-gen Fire TV Cube and 2nd-gen Fire TV box, which are both obvious powerhouses when it comes to gaming capabilities.
It’s worth noting that in all of these benchmarks, including these gaming benchmarks, the new 1080p Sticks slightly, but consistently, outperform the Fire TV Stick 4K. It’s probably not a big enough difference to be noticeable in regular use, but it’s there nonetheless. These 3 latest Firesticks all use the same GPU, use very similar CPUs, and have the same 1.7Ghz CPU speed/cores. My guess for the Fire TV Stick 4K’s slightly inferior performance is the extra resources needed to output a 4K interface instead of a 1080p interface. The new 1080p devices do run Fire OS 7, while the Fire TV Stick 4K runs Fire OS 6, so that may also have to do with the performance difference. The newer OS , which is based on Android 9 instead of Android 7.1, might be slightly better optimized.
The Fire TV Stick 4K is a great device and has been very well received by the Fire TV enthusiast community, so it’s good to see that the new entry-level Fire TV Stick Lite and Fire TV Stick 3 perform just as well as the 4K Stick. It’s hard to believe that these relatively cheap and tiny new Fire TV Sticks now pack about the same power as the original 1st-gen Fire TV box that started it all.
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I’m keeping my Fire TV 2… forever!
Agreed. I have the 1st fire tv, the tv2, the cube 1,2 and various sticks. Firetv2 beats the cube 2 hands down all day long in real world use. Maybe it’s the software. But it’s just better. Both run 1080 and in the past both on the same tv as I put the cube2 on the main tv thinking it would be an upgrade and went back to the tv2. Amazon was on a good path, but just like the kindle hdx (still the best tablet I even owned) they don’t make the high end option anymore. Which sucks. Now it’s all low spec. I don’t mind paying more money for better speed and performance, but I guess that product manager left the building and the cheap slow device guy stayed.
I believe the Fire TV 2 is the only device which uses the 64-bit version of the OS.
That’s correct.
Wat bit does the cube2 use 32 bit os
Yes, the Cube 2 uses a 32-bit OS.
“Firetv2 beats the cube 2 hands down all day long in real world use” Scroll up, it doesn’t. And yes, I’ve used and own a Fire TV 2, just like I own all other Fire TVs ever released, nothing comes close to the Cube 2.
666, you speak the truth, you devil you!
Oh, pshaw (pardon my language)—I, too, have owned Fire TV 1s (they were okay out of the gate, but slowed significantly over time), Fire TV 2s (a decent effort in 2015, but now more than a little long in the tooth in 2020), and Fire TV Cube 2s (benchmarks and performance are still close to, or slightly exceeding, the far more expensive, so-called “champ” Nvidia Shield). In my own real-world use, and as indicated in virtually every benchmark and review, the Fire TV Cube 2 far exceeds the performance of all of previous Amazon Fire TV devices by a significant margin, and is “just better” by any measurable definition.
The above notwithstanding, if you still have any second-gen Fire Tv Cubes with which you’re unhappy, I’d be more than happy to take them off your hands for the cost of shipping…
Agree 100%!!
Until it stops working
Fire TV 2, is indeed straight
I’ll Probably snatch a Fire TV Cube 2 on prime day
Those benchmarks make me think about picking one up, too!
I just purchased one – $99.99. Not sure if Prime Day will offer a lower price than that.
I also added an additional 64gb SDD hd, which the device immediately recognized and let me format.
Looks like $90 is the lowest price ever. We’ll see if Prime Day can beat it!
I’m wondering if the performance is really much better from the fire TV2 to the cube2? Is it really worth it?
See above. I don’t think so in real world usage.
Yes and yes. The difference in performance is quite significant, both by benchmarks and in real-world performance.
Would be great if you could do the same tests on Google Sabrina once you can get your hands on one.
Will do. I’m planning to do a comparison that includes the new Chromecast, Shield TV 2017, Shield TV 2019 (tube), and Tivo Stream.
Cool. I would also like to see this comparison. I will likely be picking up the new Chromecast.
Don’t bother with the stream, Tivo can’t do anything right anymore.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a disappointment, which is why I haven’t covered it much at all, but I figured I’d still include it in the Android TV round of benchmarks.
Any chance adding sabrina will be soon? Looking at shopping on prime day and want to decide on my upgrade!
I’ve got one ordered. Once it arrives I’ll do an Android TV vs Fire TV roundup like this one.
Sweet! Thank you!
No Shield TV Pro (2019)? Trying to decide between that and Fire TV Cube 2 for black friday.
Sorry, but I don’t have a 2019 Pro. The Shield TV Pro 2019 performs nearly equally to the Shield TV 2019 and the Shield TV 2017.
So for these tests, 4k devices were run in 4k, and 1080p devices in 1080p?
Yup. I thought about running everything in 1080p to make it a more equal comparison, but I figured I’d rather be closer to how they’ll perform in the real world. Meaning, the 4K stick is likely going to be connected to a 4K TV, so if it performs worse because of that, I wanted it to be reflected in the benchmark, which it was.
Would you be kind enough to rerun the test suite on the 4k at 1080p so we have apples-to-applrs comparison?
I’ll try to fit that in when I do the Android TV devices.
This is the kind of information we missed! Glad to have you back, Elias!
Thanks! Feels great to be back! Much more to come!
I have the 2nd generation fire tv box and the 1st generation box as well as 2 4k firesticks. Like all. The 4k firestick on my vizio 4k smart TV has excellent picture quality
I own 2 x Fire Tv Stick 4K, I really like those, feels powerful, I can access websites through Silk Browser and play videos from them without a hitch, the Wifi speeds are great, supports bluetooth so I can connect it to my speakers, software UI updates are coming soon, can’t wait. Good device.
Thanks!
Is that the 2nd generation box
“Fire TV 2” refers to this 2nd-generation box: https://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-announces-new-fire-tv-with-4k-ultra-hd-and-alexa-voice-control/
Is the 2nd generation fire tv box year 2015 4k
No.
Yes, the “Fire TV 2” is the 2nd gen Fire TV box, which was the late-2015 release of the Fire TV with 4K.
As JD said, yes, the 2015 Fire TV 2 is 4K. There is some confusion about it because it actually outputs everything in 1080p (like the UI and games) and only switches to 4K for video playback.
Thanks for the info
What is the outlook for a new Firestick 4K? I’m happy with the current one but they haven’t been upgraded for years. I’m also hoping they give them significantly more memory than 8GB!
Thanks for taking the time to do this, Elias. Hopefully, this will finally put some sort of lid on the erroneous/idiotic claims that the Fire TV 2 somehow benchmarks and/or performs better than the Fire TV Cube 2. Oh, wait, never mind…still can’t fix stupid.
Haha, I blame the Fire TV 2’s built-in Ethernet port. It has somehow put a spell on people to stay loyal to the end of time. :-P They’re both great devices. While the Fire TV Cube 2 is superior in numerous ways, it’s not so much better that I’d say Fire TV 2 owners HAVE to update just yet.
THis has all been interesting. I believe I have most every model but the Cube 2. Have a one, never used it…In short, I had all models, but preferred the Roku due to interface and depth of “channels.” Having said that, I nearly always purchased the newest Fire TV models. I am NOT here to sway users, but I WOULD like, it to include the most recent Rokus to your comparison. Not sure I am ready to purchase the newest Fire MOdels, PS…Adding the AMAZON TVs with FIRE built in is also a curiousity…They were so inexpensive for 24″ models, I purchased one of those as well. THANKS FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE…..and looking forward to as others have requested, particularly the newest Chromecast Google TV. Looks intriguing.
After reading through the comments, I’d now like see a real world comparison between the Fire TV 2 and the Cube 2. Maybe a YouTube video?
Looks like I am going to upgrade my Cube 1 to a Cube 2…I really wish the FireTV2 could use the new remote, I would pull that out of storage and use it.
Crying shame that they didn’t refresh the Cube2. Amazon Day trade in, here I come…
Just add a side click accessory to the remote
Or use a logitech harmony hub. No voice on remote, but it is awesome. That said, you can use a google mini or echo dot to use voice on the fire.. albeit limited.
Interesting that the two new sticks perform as well as the 4K stick. Amazon better bring out a new 4K stick soon!
AnTuTu is a horrible benchmarking system for multimedia.
that thing doesn’t even know what 4K is.
AMAZON FIRSTICK LITE DOES NOT SUPPORT 4K OR UHD AND NO DOLBY!!!!!!!!
I’m very open to better benchmark app suggestions. They’re honestly all pretty poor at testing streaming devices since they’re tailored for mobile phones, but it’s, unfortunately, all that is available.
Just curious how the performance of the TVs that have FireTV built in as their OS. Are they in general much slower? I was thinking of upgrading TVs and currently have a FireTV 2nd gen box on the TV looking to replace. Thx.
I have the Pendant and it still works fine. Except that it fills it’s storage and I have to manually clear out all the apps’ caches. This happens on our 4K Stick too. So it’s an operating system problem. i’d like to know how to stop the Screensaver app from taking up 800 meg+ of storage too.
So when does everyone think a new 4K stick will be released? I’m keeping my Pendant for now. Thanks, Bob
Def an OS issue with storage being eaten up. I have it on all my FTVs, and have seen others mention it.
Clocks: sure is a problem. Even my wife yells at the Firestick over this… it’s the CBS All Access app, HBO app, History Channel and Showtime that eat up the much. ANd all those apps are set to not save any date local on the stick. It’s their cache that will just grow and grow.
https://s
Force stop afterwards
Force stop afterwards…. ??????
One way to make more room in memory is to go to Settings/Applications/Manage Installed Applications and then select your most commonly used programs one at a time and once selected, select “Force Stop”, then move on down to “Clear Cache”. Do this for each of your commonly used programs to free up memory on the Fire TV device. Another option is to simply reboot the Fire TV Device which will clear all unused temp memory. There are also APK’s that will do this for you and can be installed and used when needed. A better solution might be to purchase an OTG Cable and a small 64GB or 128GB flash drive and format half of the drive to use with programs and the other half to use for storage of downloaded material. Reinstall applications that you commonly use and a lot of them will install to the flash drive instead of using up all Fire TV memory. As long as you keep about 1GB of RAM free, things usually work pretty smooth and quickly. Check this site for specific instructions on how to do the things above.
I hadn’t owned a Cube since last winter, but decided to buy one a few days ago and even bought a used one from Amazon warehouse for 76.00, with no warranty to save money. Support pointed out it be will eligible for return until the end of January, so that’s my warranty. It came in slightly damaged packaging, with all new accessories, and a few scuffs around the inputs on the back from someone who has poor aim when insetting connectors. It works perfectly and I wanted to post this to make the point that the upgrade from my Stick 4K’s can’t be over-estimated. The sticks are quick, but this thing is quicker and the picture is noticeably better. Of course there is the built-in Echo. Just using it with my HDHomerun DVR app, for example, is so much smoother and faster that, that alone justifies the purchase. Can’t remember why I got rid of original 2019 Cube. Highly recommend the 2019 Cube.
As part of the benchmarks and info, it would be good to know if each of the Fire TV Devices has built in “Hardware Deinterlacing”. For those of us that use ATSC SiliconDust HDHomeRun Tuners, this is a MUST HAVE in order to be able to watch TV Channels that are still broadcast in 1080i format or any of the old 480i or lower Interlaced video broadcast by these ATSC Broadcasters. Hardware Deinterlacing does not seem to be available in the Fire TV Box 2nd Gen or the Fire TV Stick 2nd Gen.
It IS however present and working in my Fire TV 4K Sticks and my most recent purchase of the Fire TV Edition TCL Sound Bar Alto 8+ which is suppose to contain the guts of the Fire TV 4K Stick. Would love to know what other Fire TV Devices incorporate this great Hardware Deinterlacing technology, especially the Fire TV Cube 2nd Gen or either of the newest Fire TV 3rd Gen Sticks.
Just picked up 2 firetv sticks lite on amazon for £17:99 each a good deal they are very fast