The New iPhone 15 Pro Max: A Game Changer for Mobile Gaming?

This year's iPhone 15 Pro Max has been making waves in the tech world, and not just because of its sleek design and improved camera features. What's truly exciting is the ability to run console-level games on this device. We're talking about PS4-level assets, with some titles even running at 720p medium settings. Yes, you read that right – these are not your ordinary mobile games. The iPhone 15 Pro Max has the power to run some of the most demanding games out there, and it's a game-changer for mobile gaming.

The ability to run console-level games on this device is a significant upgrade from previous models. While we've seen slightly higher frame rates in older mobile games like Real Racing 3 and Asphalt 9, the iPhone 15 Pro Max takes things to a whole new level. With the power of its A16 Bionic chip, it can effortlessly run some of the most graphically demanding titles out there. And it's not just about running faster frames per second – the iPhone 15 Pro Max also supports ray tracing and has access to features like RT enable, which allows for smoother performance in games that utilize this technology.

But what really sets the iPhone 15 Pro Max apart is its future-proofing element. This device can run any game for the next few years without breaking a sweat. And with the addition of support for console-level games, it's clear that Apple is investing heavily in making the iPhone 15 Pro Max a go-to device for gamers. Whether you're into action-packed titles like Call of Duty or more casual games like Star Rail, this device has got you covered.

Of course, one area where the iPhone 15 Pro Max really shines is in its camera features. The new chip, the S6, includes an improved image signal processor (ISP) that makes a big impact on photo and video processing. But how does it compare to other flagship Android devices? We took a look at some side-by-side shots with the IQ2, another device running on the 8 Gen 3 chip, and we were impressed by the results.

The camera samples taken on both devices show that the iPhone 15 Pro Max can hold its own against even the best of them. But is it worth getting excited about? For some, the answer is yes – especially those who are looking for a device that can keep up with their gaming demands. However, others may not see a significant difference between this year's model and last year's.

In terms of performance, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is certainly comfortable faster than its predecessor, with differences ranging from around 10 to 30% depending on the game. But despite these improvements, we didn't see the same level of efficiency that some might have hoped for. In fact, in our tests, the device ended up using more battery power than expected – a marginally improved battery life may be down to the design of the battery rather than any significant change from previous models.

One area where the iPhone 15 Pro Max does win is in terms of benchmark scores. When it comes to OpenCL and general graphics performance, the iPhone takes the lead over its competitors. But when it comes to console games optimized for the Metal API, the results are more mixed – with some titles still showing better performance on other devices.

In conclusion, while the iPhone 15 Pro Max is certainly a powerful device, it's not without its limitations. The addition of support for console-level games is a significant upgrade, but we're still waiting to see if developers will take advantage of this new feature. Additionally, the device's battery life could be improved – although this may be down to the design of the battery rather than any change from previous models.

But what really gets us excited about this device is the potential for future-proofing. With its powerful A16 Bionic chip and support for ray tracing, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is well-positioned to deliver some impressive performance in the coming years. And with the addition of features like AI and machine learning, we can't wait to see what Apple has in store for us.

Of course, no discussion of the iPhone 15 Pro Max would be complete without mentioning its competition – particularly the Samsung S24 Ultra, which boasts an even more powerful chip and some impressive camera features. But as for now, it's clear that the iPhone 15 Pro Max is a device worth getting excited about. Whether you're a gamer or just looking for a top-notch smartphone, this device has got it all.

But what do our readers think? Are they tempted to upgrade to the new iPhone 15 Pro Max? And if so, which other devices are on their radar? We want to hear from you – let us know in the comments below. If you enjoyed this video, be sure to like and subscribe for more tech-related content.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys I'm Tom the tech Chap and this is the new I 12 and it is one of the first phones to ship with one of these the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 now you may remember last year I made this video with this guy the I 11 because this was also one of the first phones to come out with the HG 2 here we are a year later I've got a little bit more gray in my beard I don't know where that came from but I want to see just how much faster this new phone with the new chip which will be powering pretty much all Flagship Android phones including the xiaomi 14 pro which is also launched OnePlus 12 the Galaxy s24 Ultra although that may actually have a custom version of the chip but I want to see what this is capable of and also if it's faster than my iPhone H now you may not have heard of IU it's a sub brand of Vivo and it's not particularly well known here in the UK the US and Western markets but they're very good phones and this one's had a pretty significant upgrade I mean just look at it for starters next to last year's I 11 I think it's a beautiful design we've got these clean edges a little bit of that beam W branding going on and this Fascination meets Innovation it weighs just 23 g which is very like given its size the s23 ultra is 234 G for comparison and they share the same 6.78 in screen size we also get a smoother 144 HZ refresh rate although only in games that do actually support it otherwise day-to-day it's still 120 HZ plus a peak brightness of a ludicrous 3,000 nits triple camera on the back now with bigger sensors and higher resolutions versus last year phone including a much improved three times Periscope lens all inside this sort of square cool camera module so in terms of the specs on the inside we have a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 obviously and in this particular top spec model it also comes with 16 gigs of RAM and 512 storage and keeping the lights on is a 5,000 mAh battery which is the same size as this one from last year however they say it's the first in industry first graphite design battery so we'll have to see how that performs in comparison also if the efficiency of the new chip goes some way to increas in the battery life as well Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 and all the trimmings this is a proper 2024 flagship phone and also with some nice gaming extras if I swipe in from the side here to bring up the game menu some games like Call of Duty here offer dedicated Esports modes turning off background notifications and focusing on the game you can switch between battery saving balanced and a monster performance presets and in some games there's even a super resolution option that can make the game look sharper without affecting your frame rate what I definitely recommend though is if you are going to do some proper gaming with this or indeed any phone get yourself one of these it doesn't have to be this it's the backbone uh sort of PlayStation USBC controller but any controller that adds a d-pad and some shoulder buttons because unlike the r gaming phone for example which we're expecting a new version of very soon as well uh this doesn't have any shoulder triggers but a controller like this makes all the difference to playing games on mobile but still even if you're not necessarily going to buy this exact phone it should be a good indicator given its Flagship specs of how well this new chip performs and how it competes with last year and also the iPhone so let's get down to business and if I bring in last year's IQ 11 for comparison with the H Gen 2 and also with 16 gigs of ram in Gig bench 6 single core we're looking at just a 12% optic although a more significant 23% boost in multicore still nothing too crazy although if we go over to the open Cal graphics test it's a whopping 60% gain over last year and that sort of tallies with the overall 30% game I'm seeing in an 2u which tests both the processor and the graphics although yu2 actually ran hotter and used more battery during this test but then jumping over to the 20-minute 3D Mark Wildlife extreme stress test we looking at a 38% bump for both the peak and the low scores with nonon identical stability scores and actually here in contrast to the antutu test the new phone used just 5% of his battery versus 9% on the old model so perhaps we ask seeing some efficiency gains although it did hit a 5° higher Peak temperature and that's despite some improved cooling with this new phone but how does all that translate to some actual real games well I fired up a bit of War Thunder maxed out all the settings and both phones do support rate tracing and with rt we're looking at about 80 to 100 FPS with the 8 Gen 2 on last year's phone versus 100 to 120 on the 8 gen 3 in the new iq2 although if we turn off R tracing we get a 10 to 15 FPS boost on both phones with both hitting 120 although the new a gen 3 iq2 offering consistently higher frame rates is it enough to notice well not really and the biggest difference is only if you have Ray tracing on which doesn't really make much difference in War Thunder but I guess it does make it more future proof but then a quick test of video editing and exporting this 1 minute 4K 60 video in Premier Rush the new phone is consistently about 10% ahead and then finishing 7 Seconds faster so yes the new new phone it's faster but it's not something youd necessarily notice it's not all that significant we're looking at sort of 10 to 30% across the board depending on the app but then most of us aren't upgrading from last year's phone if you've got a phone from two three four years ago then yes this is definitely going to be worth the upgrade and noticeably faster particularly in gaming but is it faster than the iPhone 15 Pro Max with the A7 Pro chip well here is one I made earlier and the answer is kind of it depends in Gig bench 6 the iPhone is T 28% faster in single core although just 4% faster in multicore but still in terms of the processor a win for the iPhone however in an 22 I'm getting about 146,000 on the iPhone versus 209,000 on the IQ although it does seem to be mostly driven by the graphics score and then again firing Up 3D Mark which primarily tests the graphics we're looking at a similar 42% high score on the IQ which is kind of crazy although the iPhone does have a higher stability score so a clear win for this guy well it's not quite as simple as that if we go back to geekbench 6 and run the graphics test the iPhone comfortably beats both the open CL and the Vulcan scores of the IQ when running Apple's metal API different tests yes but it shows how apps and games optimized and built using Apple's metal API can utilize the full power of their apple silicon there's a lot of IOS and Android hardware and software differences going on here although the IQ does beat the iPhone in War Thunder again maxed out both with R tracing the iPhone doesn't actually perform that well jumping between 70 and 105 FPS and oddly enough turning off R tracing doesn't have a significant impact on the iPhone's performance but if we then jump over to honai Star rail one of the most graphically demanding games out there and very similar to genin impact both phones run this flawlessly with the IQ easily maxing out the 60fps cap however the iPhone has an exclusive 120 FPS mode in the graphic settings unlocking that performance of the A7 Pro and giving us a noticeably smoother gaming experience hopefully we see this added to the Android version at some point the problem I have though is as fast as these new chips are and we see these nice little upgrades each year there's rarely anything significantly different in terms of features or apps that come out alongside it I think what is different this year with the iPhone in particular is the ability to run some of these console level games as we kind of call them I mean they're basically PS4 level assets they've run at sort of 720p medium settings but Resident Evil Village Resident Evil 4 soon Assassin's Creed just a handful but it is good to see the power of these things actually utilized for something not just slightly higher frame rates in the same old mobile games like Real Racing 3 and Asphalt 9 and Call of Duty that we've been playing for years but then of course there is a future proofing element to it you'll be able to flawlessly run any game for the next few years we may start to see some of these console games come to the Play Store on Android as well especially if developers are putting the time into porting it over to iPhone we'll see and yes it is able to run raid tracing much faster so it can you know play RT enable games at a higher frame rate but there's barely any out there and so far I'm not really that convinced by uh the difference it makes one last thing before I wrap up though I just want to show you a few camera samples taken on both the iq2 and the iPhone 15 Pro Max to give you an idea of how they compare because while there are far too many differences and variables for a direct comparison especially as IQ doesn't necessarily claim to offer the best camera system but of course the new Chips the S so's also include isps or image signal processors which do have a big impact on the processing of your photos and videos and also the camera's features and I am excited to see how the cameras stack up in all the new flagship Androids like OnePlus 12 xiaomi 14 pro the Samsung s24 Ultra but just with these handful of sidebyside shots which do you prefer let me know in the comments so is this little guy actually worth getting excited about well kind of I mean the 8 Gen 3 is Comfortably faster than the 8 Gen 2 as I say between sort of 10 and 30% depending on the game and primarily for the graphics it does still get pretty warm though after about 10 minutes of playing Star rail it made my hands a little bit sweaty so we're not seeing any sort of Night and Day difference in terms of running cooler or efficiency after all my tests I did only see a 2 to three percentage Point battery gain and and 22 actually use more batteries so I'm not really seeing that significant reduction in power use that Snapdragon were claiming and that marginally improved battery may be just down to the battery design that IQ made in terms of how it Stacks up with the iPhone well I'm going to call it a tie they're sort of a bit different in terms of processing performance in benchmark the iPhone wins in terms of opencl and general graphics performance the I with the hn3 wins but then in the abson games which of course are optimized for the metal API the iPhone can win so it's not a straight comparison it's like comparing a MacBook Pro to a Windows laptop but importantly you're not going to be disappointed with either of them yes this has access to a couple of console games but would yet to Rel see that materialize they both support rate tracing and while this has a 120 FPS mode in honai uh this performs better in War Thunder and there are more gaming features and to be fair I've also barely mentioned Ai and that is a big push this year with the new chips and the mpu performance but we're just not really seeing anything at least on this phone that can demonstrate that there are rumors that we're going to see something called Samsung AI which is sort of code Nam Samsung gaus which could be a pretty impressive on device AI assistant like a a soup toop Bigby with the s24 ultra so we'll have to wait and see I am also excited to see how this Compares with the demeny 9300 chip from mediatech which will be coming in the Vivo X100 Pro and also the rest of the H gen 3 phones coming soon from OnePlus xiaomi Samsung and everyone else but what do you make of the iq2 and also the performance of what we've seen so far of the 8 gen 3 are you tempted to upgrade and actually if you are going to get a new phone soon what do you have your eye on let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys if you enjoyed this video a like And subscribe would be fantastic I was going to say fascinating but that's not the right word fantastic and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chathey guys I'm Tom the tech Chap and this is the new I 12 and it is one of the first phones to ship with one of these the Snapdragon 8 gen 3 now you may remember last year I made this video with this guy the I 11 because this was also one of the first phones to come out with the HG 2 here we are a year later I've got a little bit more gray in my beard I don't know where that came from but I want to see just how much faster this new phone with the new chip which will be powering pretty much all Flagship Android phones including the xiaomi 14 pro which is also launched OnePlus 12 the Galaxy s24 Ultra although that may actually have a custom version of the chip but I want to see what this is capable of and also if it's faster than my iPhone H now you may not have heard of IU it's a sub brand of Vivo and it's not particularly well known here in the UK the US and Western markets but they're very good phones and this one's had a pretty significant upgrade I mean just look at it for starters next to last year's I 11 I think it's a beautiful design we've got these clean edges a little bit of that beam W branding going on and this Fascination meets Innovation it weighs just 23 g which is very like given its size the s23 ultra is 234 G for comparison and they share the same 6.78 in screen size we also get a smoother 144 HZ refresh rate although only in games that do actually support it otherwise day-to-day it's still 120 HZ plus a peak brightness of a ludicrous 3,000 nits triple camera on the back now with bigger sensors and higher resolutions versus last year phone including a much improved three times Periscope lens all inside this sort of square cool camera module so in terms of the specs on the inside we have a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 obviously and in this particular top spec model it also comes with 16 gigs of RAM and 512 storage and keeping the lights on is a 5,000 mAh battery which is the same size as this one from last year however they say it's the first in industry first graphite design battery so we'll have to see how that performs in comparison also if the efficiency of the new chip goes some way to increas in the battery life as well Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4 and all the trimmings this is a proper 2024 flagship phone and also with some nice gaming extras if I swipe in from the side here to bring up the game menu some games like Call of Duty here offer dedicated Esports modes turning off background notifications and focusing on the game you can switch between battery saving balanced and a monster performance presets and in some games there's even a super resolution option that can make the game look sharper without affecting your frame rate what I definitely recommend though is if you are going to do some proper gaming with this or indeed any phone get yourself one of these it doesn't have to be this it's the backbone uh sort of PlayStation USBC controller but any controller that adds a d-pad and some shoulder buttons because unlike the r gaming phone for example which we're expecting a new version of very soon as well uh this doesn't have any shoulder triggers but a controller like this makes all the difference to playing games on mobile but still even if you're not necessarily going to buy this exact phone it should be a good indicator given its Flagship specs of how well this new chip performs and how it competes with last year and also the iPhone so let's get down to business and if I bring in last year's IQ 11 for comparison with the H Gen 2 and also with 16 gigs of ram in Gig bench 6 single core we're looking at just a 12% optic although a more significant 23% boost in multicore still nothing too crazy although if we go over to the open Cal graphics test it's a whopping 60% gain over last year and that sort of tallies with the overall 30% game I'm seeing in an 2u which tests both the processor and the graphics although yu2 actually ran hotter and used more battery during this test but then jumping over to the 20-minute 3D Mark Wildlife extreme stress test we looking at a 38% bump for both the peak and the low scores with nonon identical stability scores and actually here in contrast to the antutu test the new phone used just 5% of his battery versus 9% on the old model so perhaps we ask seeing some efficiency gains although it did hit a 5° higher Peak temperature and that's despite some improved cooling with this new phone but how does all that translate to some actual real games well I fired up a bit of War Thunder maxed out all the settings and both phones do support rate tracing and with rt we're looking at about 80 to 100 FPS with the 8 Gen 2 on last year's phone versus 100 to 120 on the 8 gen 3 in the new iq2 although if we turn off R tracing we get a 10 to 15 FPS boost on both phones with both hitting 120 although the new a gen 3 iq2 offering consistently higher frame rates is it enough to notice well not really and the biggest difference is only if you have Ray tracing on which doesn't really make much difference in War Thunder but I guess it does make it more future proof but then a quick test of video editing and exporting this 1 minute 4K 60 video in Premier Rush the new phone is consistently about 10% ahead and then finishing 7 Seconds faster so yes the new new phone it's faster but it's not something youd necessarily notice it's not all that significant we're looking at sort of 10 to 30% across the board depending on the app but then most of us aren't upgrading from last year's phone if you've got a phone from two three four years ago then yes this is definitely going to be worth the upgrade and noticeably faster particularly in gaming but is it faster than the iPhone 15 Pro Max with the A7 Pro chip well here is one I made earlier and the answer is kind of it depends in Gig bench 6 the iPhone is T 28% faster in single core although just 4% faster in multicore but still in terms of the processor a win for the iPhone however in an 22 I'm getting about 146,000 on the iPhone versus 209,000 on the IQ although it does seem to be mostly driven by the graphics score and then again firing Up 3D Mark which primarily tests the graphics we're looking at a similar 42% high score on the IQ which is kind of crazy although the iPhone does have a higher stability score so a clear win for this guy well it's not quite as simple as that if we go back to geekbench 6 and run the graphics test the iPhone comfortably beats both the open CL and the Vulcan scores of the IQ when running Apple's metal API different tests yes but it shows how apps and games optimized and built using Apple's metal API can utilize the full power of their apple silicon there's a lot of IOS and Android hardware and software differences going on here although the IQ does beat the iPhone in War Thunder again maxed out both with R tracing the iPhone doesn't actually perform that well jumping between 70 and 105 FPS and oddly enough turning off R tracing doesn't have a significant impact on the iPhone's performance but if we then jump over to honai Star rail one of the most graphically demanding games out there and very similar to genin impact both phones run this flawlessly with the IQ easily maxing out the 60fps cap however the iPhone has an exclusive 120 FPS mode in the graphic settings unlocking that performance of the A7 Pro and giving us a noticeably smoother gaming experience hopefully we see this added to the Android version at some point the problem I have though is as fast as these new chips are and we see these nice little upgrades each year there's rarely anything significantly different in terms of features or apps that come out alongside it I think what is different this year with the iPhone in particular is the ability to run some of these console level games as we kind of call them I mean they're basically PS4 level assets they've run at sort of 720p medium settings but Resident Evil Village Resident Evil 4 soon Assassin's Creed just a handful but it is good to see the power of these things actually utilized for something not just slightly higher frame rates in the same old mobile games like Real Racing 3 and Asphalt 9 and Call of Duty that we've been playing for years but then of course there is a future proofing element to it you'll be able to flawlessly run any game for the next few years we may start to see some of these console games come to the Play Store on Android as well especially if developers are putting the time into porting it over to iPhone we'll see and yes it is able to run raid tracing much faster so it can you know play RT enable games at a higher frame rate but there's barely any out there and so far I'm not really that convinced by uh the difference it makes one last thing before I wrap up though I just want to show you a few camera samples taken on both the iq2 and the iPhone 15 Pro Max to give you an idea of how they compare because while there are far too many differences and variables for a direct comparison especially as IQ doesn't necessarily claim to offer the best camera system but of course the new Chips the S so's also include isps or image signal processors which do have a big impact on the processing of your photos and videos and also the camera's features and I am excited to see how the cameras stack up in all the new flagship Androids like OnePlus 12 xiaomi 14 pro the Samsung s24 Ultra but just with these handful of sidebyside shots which do you prefer let me know in the comments so is this little guy actually worth getting excited about well kind of I mean the 8 Gen 3 is Comfortably faster than the 8 Gen 2 as I say between sort of 10 and 30% depending on the game and primarily for the graphics it does still get pretty warm though after about 10 minutes of playing Star rail it made my hands a little bit sweaty so we're not seeing any sort of Night and Day difference in terms of running cooler or efficiency after all my tests I did only see a 2 to three percentage Point battery gain and and 22 actually use more batteries so I'm not really seeing that significant reduction in power use that Snapdragon were claiming and that marginally improved battery may be just down to the battery design that IQ made in terms of how it Stacks up with the iPhone well I'm going to call it a tie they're sort of a bit different in terms of processing performance in benchmark the iPhone wins in terms of opencl and general graphics performance the I with the hn3 wins but then in the abson games which of course are optimized for the metal API the iPhone can win so it's not a straight comparison it's like comparing a MacBook Pro to a Windows laptop but importantly you're not going to be disappointed with either of them yes this has access to a couple of console games but would yet to Rel see that materialize they both support rate tracing and while this has a 120 FPS mode in honai uh this performs better in War Thunder and there are more gaming features and to be fair I've also barely mentioned Ai and that is a big push this year with the new chips and the mpu performance but we're just not really seeing anything at least on this phone that can demonstrate that there are rumors that we're going to see something called Samsung AI which is sort of code Nam Samsung gaus which could be a pretty impressive on device AI assistant like a a soup toop Bigby with the s24 ultra so we'll have to wait and see I am also excited to see how this Compares with the demeny 9300 chip from mediatech which will be coming in the Vivo X100 Pro and also the rest of the H gen 3 phones coming soon from OnePlus xiaomi Samsung and everyone else but what do you make of the iq2 and also the performance of what we've seen so far of the 8 gen 3 are you tempted to upgrade and actually if you are going to get a new phone soon what do you have your eye on let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys if you enjoyed this video a like And subscribe would be fantastic I was going to say fascinating but that's not the right word fantastic and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat\n"