Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra fails to outperform Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 phones in a real-world gaming test

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra debuted at the start of the month with an exclusive version of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 featuring a Cortex-X3 prime core boosted to 3.36 GHz from the standard 3.2 GHz. While that has guaranteed the new Samsung flagships impressive CPU benchmark numbers, it appears they still may not be great at actual gaming.

As tested by Golden Reviewer on popular title Genshin Impact, the Galaxy S23 Ultra seems to put up a disappointing showing, with numbers worse than other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phones, and even hardly better than last-gen Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 phones. The Galaxy S23 Ultra only records an average of 55 FPS,  noticeably lower than a device like the Xiaomi 13 Pro which achieves an average of 59.4 FPS. For some perspective, even the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1-powered Xiaomi 12T Pro averaged 59.2 FPS in the same test.

It gets worse. With an average power draw of 6.4 W, the Galaxy S23 Ultra, during the test, consumed more power than the Xiaomi 13 Pro and even the Xiaomi 12T Pro, at 5.5 W and 5.8 W. It also got a lot hotter than both phones, reaching a temperature of 43.6 °C, versus the Xiaomi 13 Pro's 39.3 °C and the 12T Pro's 41.5 °C. Those numbers aren't just Xiaomi wizardry either: the Vivo X90 Pro Plus—powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2—averaged 58.4 FPS in the test, with a power consumption of 5.2 W, and a temperature of 39.1 °C.

While there's a chance the Galaxy S23 Ultra just isn't optimized for Genshin Impact right now—these units are still on early software after all—the results of this test hardly showcase the flagship and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy in a glowing light. We'll keep you updated in the event of future developments, however.

Buy the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra on Amazon.