Samsung S25 Ultra beats iPhone 16 Pro Max benchmark over higher processor clock
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Samsung’s upcoming S25 family of flagship phones will be powered by a special version of Qualcomm’s yet-to-be-announced Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset. As usual, it will be called Snapdragon for Galaxy, but it is the specs differences with the regular Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 that matter.
Typically, Qualcomm makes a custom Snapdragon processor version for Samsung, clocked higher, and tailored to its needs that are now revolving around artificial intelligence calculations.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 already leaked out on Geekbench, clocked at the whopping 4.32 GHz for the peak processing cores and 3.53 GHz for the midrange cores. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 also leaked out running on a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra destined for the US market. Its specifications were quite a bit lower, though, at 4.19 GHz peak and 2.9 GHz midrange core speeds.
This must have been an engineering sample still, because what looks like the final Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 version for the European Galaxy S25 Ultra model has now appeared on Geekbench, too.
Carrying the model number SM-S938B, that particular Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is firing on all cylinders with the pretty breathtaking Snapdragon for Galaxy clock speeds of 4.47 GHz for the performance cores and the jaw-dropping 3.53 GHz for the midrange efficiency cores.
If those results hold water in the end, the Galaxy S25 Ultra will be fast, much faster than even the iPhone 16 Pro Max whose Apple A18 Pro chipset broke the 4 GHz barrier for the first time on an iPhone and yet is clocked lower than the Snapdragon for Galaxy on the S25 Ultra.
Samsung needs all the speed it can get for its AI features, but Qualcomm has also been excellent with the power envelope of its late Snapdragon 8-series chipsets, keeping a lid on their battery consumption while churning out record scores, too.
For comparison, the Geekbench 6 single-core score on the iPhone 16 Pro Max returns 3331 points in our testing, which beats the leaked S25 Ultra single-core number, but Samsung’s upcoming flagship destroys the iPhone in the multicore score.
There are still a few months left for Samsung to hone its 2025 Snapdragon for Galaxy order with Qualcomm, though, so the ever powerful iPhone Pro line may have finally met its performance match with Qualcomm’s later chipsets.
Daniel, a devoted tech writer at PhoneArena since 2010, has been engrossed in mobile technology since the Windows Mobile era. His expertise spans mobile hardware, software, and carrier networks, and he’s keenly interested in the future of digital health, car connectivity, and 5G. Beyond his professional pursuits, Daniel finds balance in travel, reading, and exploring new tech innovations, while contemplating the ethical and privacy implications of our digital future.
