Oppo Find X9 stress test: Over 50% less performance under sustained load

We were looking forward to testing the Oppo Find X9. Since the smartphones are high-quality and feature a great Hasselblad camera system, they are an interesting addition to the market.

Trouble in smartphone paradise

However, we quickly noticed a problem with the Oppo Find X9 that plagues many current high-end smartphones: the top SoCs from Qualcomm and MediaTek have reached extreme performance levels. Every year, even more peak power is promised. At the same time, however, it is practically impossible to reduce the size of the components on the chips without causing problems.

This also means that the chips generate more and more heat as performance increases while component efficiency can hardly be improved any further. This is not only evident on the Oppo Find X9, but on almost all high-end smartphones released this year, especially in stress tests.

Things are getting hot under the hood

Smartphones often exhibit a brief performance spike under heavy load, after which performance drops significantly in order to prevent overheating.

Dedicated gaming phones therefore often use external fans to cool the housing and keep the CPU power stable. But this is, of course, an impractical solution.

Even though manufacturers keep promising new vapor chamber improvements for cooling, these don't seem to be keeping pace with the increasing heat dissipation.

Benchmark issues, but what about real-world performance?

Specifically, the performance loss of the Oppo Find X9 in the demanding stress tests of 3DMark is over 50%.

But is this really a problem in everyday use? Very few people will run their phone at full power all the time. Mobile games are highly adaptable, as they are designed to run on as many devices as possible.

Nevertheless, other benchmarks also show that the Oppo Find X9 cannot even match the performance of its predecessor in some cases. You won't necessarily notice this in everyday use, as the phone is absolutely smooth and lightning fast for most tasks.

Overall, however, it must be said that maximum performance is only available for very short periods, and there seem to be significant cooling issues with current top-of-the-line SoCs. Detailed analyses and results can be found in our comprehensive review of the Oppo Find X9.