Apple promises, the internet tests. The newsly released iPhone 18 Pro Max went up against the iPhone 17 Pro Max in a test involving Assassin's Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4. It went long enough for heat and throttling to show up. This extended gaming test suggests the iPhone 18 Pro Max is not just meeting the 40% sustained performance claim Apple made officially, it is going past it. Battery life may have been the sore spot, but gaming is where this phone flexes, according to the Dame Tech channel.
Before a single game was launched, the A20 Pro chip was already ahead on paper. In Geekbench 6.7, it scores 4,725 single-core and 12,575 multi-core points, against 3,883 and 10,017 for last year's phone. That's roughly 22% and 26% higher, respectively.
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As far as GPU gap is concerned, Notebookcheck reports a Geekbench 6.7 Metal score of 64,069 for the A20 Pro GPU, compared to 45,683 for the A19 Pro, a lead of around 40%.
Then there is the cooling. A recent iPhone 18 Pro teardown showed a significantly larger vapour chamber sitting in direct contact with the A20 Pro, a new thermal-pad material, and a repositioned SoC. Apple clearly spent this year thinking about heat.
In Resident Evil 4, both phones ran at 2346 x 1080 with a 60 frames per second (FPS) target and identical settings. The iPhone 18 Pro Max averaged 58 FPS. The iPhone 17 Pro Max managed 38.6 FPS.
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Assassin's Creed Mirage, tested at High graphics and 1320p made the 18 Pro Max average 30 FPS, while the 17 Pro Max landed at 25.3 FPS. That's roughly 19% on average. Oh yes, the game is capped at 30 FPS.
Same games, same settings, and a long enough session for heat to do its worst. The 18 Pro Max simply held on better.