Graphics, Throttling and Storage Performance
As expected, the Adreno 510 GPU provides a significant performance improvement on the Adreno 405 in older Snapdragon 61x SoCs. Here the Adreno 510 is more than twice as fast, which translates into significantly better in-game frame rates at 1080p.
The performance of this GPU is close to the Adreno 418 in the Snapdragon 808, so it also boasts decent gains on the Snapdragon 801 and Snapdragon 805. Combined with strong CPU performance, the Snapdragon 650 is a perfect SoC to complement the Snapdragon 820: the S820 still provides decent better performance for flagships (around 20% on the CPU, and more than 2x on the GPU), but the S650 is a very competent mid-range chip.
The Snapdragon 650 in the Xiaomi Mi Max did not throttle to any significant extent after 30 minutes of gaming. Excellent.
NAND performance from the 32 GB model was very good, competing with recent flagships in both sequential and random transfer speeds. It's not the fastest device on the market, but it has a decent edge over other mid-range handsets and performs well against the best.