Apple iPhone 18 Pro Max gaming performance exceeds official 40% sustained performance claim
We recently saw a comparison between the iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max in terms of battery life, and needless to say, the results were not too great. However, what happens when both flagship Apple iPhones go up against each other in a pure gaming test?
Thankfully, YouTube channel Dame Tech recently did just that, comparing the iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max in Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4. Both games were tested long enough for heat and thermal throttling to affect sustained performance.
And even before you consider any improvement in gaming performance, the A20 Pro, which powers the latest iPhone Pro series, already shows a clear performance improvement in benchmark data. In Geekbench 6.7, the iPhone 18 Pro Max scores 4,725 points in single-core and 12,575 points in multi-core tests. The iPhone 17 Pro Max scores 3,883 and 10,017 points, respectively. That puts the A20 Pro ahead by around 22% in single-core performance and 26% in multi-core performance.
The GPU gap is larger, with Notebookcheck reporting a Geekbench 6.7 Metal score of 64,069 points for the A20 Pro GPU compared with 45,683 points for the A19 Pro GPU, giving the newer chip an advantage of around 40%.
iPhone 18 Pro Max vs iPhone 17 Pro Max in Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4
In Resident Evil 4, Dame Tech tested both phones at 2346 x 1080 resolution with a 60 FPS target using the same graphics settings, which are shown in detail below. The iPhone 18 Pro Max averaged 58 FPS with a 49.6 FPS 1% low, while the iPhone 17 Pro Max managed 38.6 FPS with a 27.9 FPS 1% low.
That puts the iPhone 18 Pro Max around 50% ahead in average frame rate, while its 1% low is nearly 78% higher. Since both phones were tested for an extended period, the result also points to a clear advantage for the newer model once heat builds up and sustained performance becomes more important.
In Assassin’s Creed Mirage, both phones were tested at High graphics and 1320p resolution. The iPhone 18 Pro Max averaged 30 FPS with a 29.8 FPS 1% low, compared with 25.3 FPS and a 21.9 FPS 1% low on the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
That works out to roughly a 19% improvement in average FPS and a 36% improvement in 1% lows. However, the average FPS gap does not show the full difference because Assassin’s Creed Mirage is capped at 30 FPS, with the iPhone 18 Pro Max already running at that limit.
iPhone 18 Pro cooling boosts sustained performance
Apple appears to have put more focus on cooling this year. As we saw earlier, a recent iPhone 18 Pro teardown showed a significantly larger vapour chamber making direct contact with the A20 Pro, along with a new thermal-pad material and a repositioned SoC.
These improvements also makes next year’s rumoured iPhone 20 particularly interesting. We reported that the 2027 models could move to an A21 Pro-class SoC, while other reports point to a major 20th-anniversary redesign and a new silicon-anode battery that could provide higher energy density and longer battery life, thus potentially mitigating one not-so-great upgrade in the iPhone 18 Pro series.
You can watch the full-legth gaming test video linked below.
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