Arms-on with my first Snapdragon 8 Elite cellphone and it is too sizzling to deal with.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite was launched final week, and we’ve already seen the primary cellphone with this chipset launch in China within the Xiaomi 15 collection. Nonetheless, Realme hopes the Realme GT7 Professional would be the first broadly out there Snapdragon 8 Elite system available on the market.

The handset is scheduled to launch in China on November 4 earlier than increasing to extra markets (together with Europe) from mid-November. I’ve the cellphone in my palms, so how does the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip fare?

What you’re getting (on paper)

The Snapdragon 8 Elite is Qualcomm’s most bold smartphone processor in years, bringing brand-new customized Oryon CPU cores for the primary time. The chip provides two prime cores clocked at a blazing 4.32GHz and 6 efficiency cores clocked at 3.53GHz. There are not any little cores right here, aping Apple and MediaTek’s approaches. Qualcomm says you must anticipate a forty five% enhance to single-core and multi-core efficiency over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, together with a 44% effectivity achieve.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite additionally has an overhauled GPU, utilizing a so-called sliced structure. This variation means the shader cores and glued perform blocks are cut up into distinct slices for improved efficiency and effectivity, permitting for extra granular energy management. Qualcomm says you must anticipate 40% sooner graphics and 35% sooner ray tracing efficiency.

This Snapdragon 8 Elite cellphone couldn’t end stress assessments

I began out working the cellphone by way of 3DMark’s GPU stress assessments to present us a good suggestion of sustained efficiency. Sadly, the Realme GT7 Professional killed the 3DMark app halfway by way of our three stress assessments (Wild Life Stress Check, Wild Life Excessive Stress Check, and Photo voltaic Bay Stress Check). The cellphone was uncomfortably sizzling at this level, and it displayed heat-related warnings upon shutting down the app. The system additionally briefly restricted me to solely utilizing a number of apps, permitting me to make calls and little or no else.

I attempted switching from the default balanced efficiency mode to the cellphone’s power-saving mode, however this didn’t make a distinction — the 3DMark app nonetheless shut down attributable to extreme warmth. Knowledge collected throughout these failed runs reveals that the cellphone hit a toasty peak of 46 levels Celsius. That is deeply regarding.

I made a decision to run a disguised model of 3DMark to bypass any doable benchmark-optimizing shenanigans on Realme’s half, utilizing the balanced profile as soon as once more. I used to be lastly in a position to full the three stress assessments, revealing a stability of 68.7%, 66.7%, and 64.3%, respectively. The graphs beneath present that the cellphone suffered steep efficiency drops at first after which delivered rock-solid stability from roughly halfway by way of. This secure efficiency wasn’t on par with peak Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely scores, however the Realme cellphone nonetheless maintained a wholesome efficiency benefit on each run.

The cellphone was sizzling to the contact after these profitable assessments, too. Actually, the app reported a peak temperature of 45 levels Celsius within the Wild Life stress take a look at, which was two to 3 levels larger than the Google Pixel 9 Professional XL and Galaxy S24 Extremely’s peak temperatures. Oddly sufficient, the GT7 Professional’s temperature within the two different stress assessments was just about in keeping with these of Google and Samsung’s telephones.

Try the graph beneath, which compares the Realme and Samsung telephones. This reveals that the Galaxy cellphone was really hotter than the Snapdragon 8 Elite handset till the midway level. The Samsung cellphone’s temperatures then stabilize, and we get some very minor efficiency wobbles. In the meantime, the Realme handset delivers extraordinarily secure efficiency however sees step by step rising temperatures that take it nicely previous the S24 Extremely. I’m involved that lengthy gaming periods may come to a untimely finish on this {hardware} if the titles aren’t optimized by the OEM or chipmaker. As soon as once more, keep in mind that this take a look at used a spoofed (and cooler working) model of the 3DMark app.

This conduct made me surprise about our CPU benchmarks as nicely. So we put in a spoofed model of Geekbench 6 to find out if Realme was certainly turning up the wick when it detects benchmark apps. The outcomes present that single-core and multi-core CPU efficiency drops by a large 63% and 47%, respectively, in comparison with the usual Geekbench 6 app.

Single-core scores really drop beneath the Pixel 9 Professional XL, whereas multi-core scores are in the identical territory because the Tensor chip. That’s an alarming efficiency downgrade for apps that aren’t on Realme’s efficiency optimization record.

What’s really occurring with this Snapdragon 8 Elite cellphone?

We suspected that this can be a case of benchmark “dishonest” gone fallacious by Realme. The cellphone runs the inventory 3DMark app at just about full tilt with no regard for system temperature till it crosses a essential thermal threshold. What’s extra regarding, although, is that even the spoofed app yields sizzling temperatures, albeit not sufficient to kill the app, as was the case with the inventory benchmark. This means that even within the best-case situation, Realme’s Snapdragon 8 Elite cellphone is stubbornly attempting to stay to a excessive degree of sustained efficiency on the expense of cooler temperatures. The worst-case situation is that the corporate disregards thermal concerns totally in favor of efficiency when it detects a benchmark app. Solely the cellphone’s built-in security measures are saving us on this worst-case situation.

Realme issued a press release to Android Authority confirming points with working 3DMark’s stress assessments on the GT7 Professional:

Relating to the 3DMark challenge, we’ve additionally observed the identical scenario. We’ll launch an up to date model; please restart your cellphone tomorrow or the day after, and you must have the ability to run assessments with the real software program.

The corporate additionally claimed that the inflated GeekBench 6 scores have been attributable to “focused optimizations by way of temperature and efficiency administration,” including that this was a “widespread business apply.” In fact, there’s a distinction between a slight efficiency drop and the dramatically diminished CPU scores we’re seeing right here.

For what it’s price, we’ve one other Snapdragon 8 Elite cellphone beneath embargo and may verify that we have been additionally in a position to full the three stress assessments simply high-quality utilizing a spoofed app. It additionally doesn’t see such a serious efficiency downgrade with the spoofed GeekBench 6 app. We have been additionally in a position to efficiently run the Wild Life Stress Check on a Qualcomm reference system on the Snapdragon Summit. So it’s clear that different telephones (business or in any other case) can full the benchmark.

This wouldn’t be the primary time a smartphone maker was caught gaming benchmarks, nor wouldn’t it be the primary time Realme was accused of such a manipulation. The corporate was beforehand banned by Antutu over allegations of benchmark dishonest again in 2021.

We nonetheless couldn’t cross up the chance to see how shut a business Snapdragon 8 Elite cellphone will get to Qualcomm’s efficiency claims. We ran three GeekBench 6 assessments in fast succession on the GT7 Professional utilizing the balanced efficiency mode and calculated the typical scores. We should emphasize as soon as once more that that is utilizing the usual app that’s the topic of “focused optimizations” quite than the spoofed app.

The excellent news is that the Realme GT7 Professional is near the Apple A18 Professional contained in the iPhone 16 Professional, with Apple profitable by about 11% in single-core scores and the Realme cellphone beating Apple’s chip by ~12% in multi-core scores. The latter result’s no shock, because the Snapdragon 8 Elite has two extra CPU cores than the Apple chip. Nonetheless, we’re curious to see if different upcoming flagship Android telephones may have the ability to beat the A18 Professional throughout the board.

In the meantime, the GT7 Professional misplaced to the Snapdragon 8 Elite reference system by ~6.5% in single-core efficiency, which isn’t an enormous disparity however nonetheless noteworthy. Nonetheless, this efficiency hole widens after we take a look at multi-core scores.

These are some spectacular year-on-year enhancements in isolation, however a way off Qualcomm’s 45% claims for single-core and multi-core efficiency. That is particularly obvious with regards to multi-core outcomes. However what about GPU-related outcomes?

I ran some one-off GPU benchmarks to see how the Realme GT7 Professional fares in opposition to the competitors. These scores have been obtained by way of the disguised 3DMark app. The usual Wild Life take a look at yields a 29% enhance over the Galaxy S24 Extremely’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, whereas the Excessive take a look at sees a 27% achieve over the Samsung cellphone. Lastly, the Photo voltaic Bay take a look at is solely for ray tracing efficiency, and we see a 27% enhance over the S24 Extremely. Sadly, the Pixel 9 telephones don’t help ray tracing.

These GT7 Professional scores don’t fairly match Qualcomm’s promise of 40% sooner graphics, though the cellphone’s ray tracing efficiency definitely will get near the chipmaker’s claimed 35% enhance.

I’m guessing these lower-than-advertised CPU and GPU scores could possibly be attributable to software program tuning or insufficient cooling. We initially suspected that slower reminiscence and/or storage could possibly be an element too, however Realme mentioned our 16GB/512GB GT7 Professional has trendy LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. In the meantime, the Snapdragon reference cellphone used 24GB of LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. Nonetheless, it’s totally doable that different Snapdragon 8 Elite telephones might meet or a minimum of get nearer to those claims with improved software program optimization and cooling.

It’s too early to definitively decide the Snapdragon 8 Elite, on condition that we’ve solely comprehensively examined one smartphone with the processor. I’m nonetheless involved by the Realme GT7 Professional’s overheating. I’m hoping these points are largely as a result of OEM’s benchmark gaming quite than a serious challenge with the Snapdragon chip. What’s additionally regarding is that benchmarks from a disguised app nonetheless yielded some excessive temperatures but refused to budge on efficiency.

This benchmark manipulation can also be lamentable as a result of even when the GT7 Professional doesn’t really meet Qualcomm’s claims, it’s clear that the Snapdragon 8 Elite remains to be a major enchancment over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.