The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s benchmark wins disappear as soon as the heat starts

New year Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra in hand, I was itching to see how the phone stacked up against the others Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phones that have been in the market for a few months now. Based on my experience so far, today’s best android phones it’s really overkill for everyday tasks and even the most demanding Android games. They may even be powerful enough to bridge the gap between phones and lightweight computers. Still, Samsung claims to pack more power with its latest flagship, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for the Galaxy.

Qualcomm notes that the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy offers a 19% CPU boost, 24% faster graphics rendering and a 39% NPU boost over its predecessor. However, that doesn’t say how much better it is compared to the regular 8 Elite Gen 5, which has been on the market since late 2025.

A closer look at the spec sheet reveals larger Oryon CPU cores, up from 4.61GHz to 4.74GHz on the standard model. That’s a 2.8% increase, but with smaller cores unchanged at 3.62GHz, it won’t make much of a meaningful difference for everyday applications or more advanced use cases.

Adreno clock speeds are harder to detect. Given that Qualcomm notes a 23% generation leap over its predecessor for the standard 8 Elite Gen 5, it’s safe to assume that the “for Galaxy” model will have a nose here as well. However, last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy It was only a few percentage points faster in the GPU benchmarks.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy benchmarks

For comparison, I caught OnePlus 15 and Xiaomi 17 Ultra. Two powerful flagships equipped with the usual Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and a lot of memory.

Starting with a look at the CPU performance scores, they are actually all square and within the margin of error of each other. This is true whether looking at single or multi-core workloads. All three phones offer essentially the same performance.

The clock speed advantage for the Galaxy S26 Ultra doesn’t translate into a real boost here, it’s likely a temporary value that doesn’t stick around long enough to make a difference across Geekbench 6’s various workloads. In fact, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra tops the multi-core score by 1.4% – but again, this is within fine margins and score differences.

Tackling graphics workloads through 3DMark’s Stress Test suite, we see a surprisingly solid edge for Samsung’s latest flagship, at least in terms of raw performance.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy is 5% to 12% faster than its competitors in the first race, depending on the exact model and test. The Wild Life Extreme test is more consistent, averaging 10% faster for the Samsung, while Solar Bay’s beam test is closer, averaging 7% ahead.

But this victory is short-lived. The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra registers the fastest temperature increase of the three, which leads to a decrease in average performance. After just four minutes of intense graphics workloads, all three models are back to performing at the same level. After that, the Galaxy S26 Ultra and OnePlus 15 continue to throttle at a very similar rate to keep the heat under control. The OnePlus often underperforms, but it benefits from a lower average temperature of just 39.1°C (102.4°F) and 37.3°C (99.1°F) on the Wild Life Extreme and Solar Bay, compared to 41.5°C (106.7°F) and 41.7°C for the Samsung. The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s redesigned cooling system helps the phone balance speed and heat, but it’s still not the coolest phone on the market.

The Xiaomi 17 Ultra offers better sustained performance under stress than other Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 competitors, but only because it is greedy for punishment. The temperature peaks at 49.5 °C (121.1 °F). This is bad news for the long-term health of the battery and makes it uncomfortable to hold the phone after long gaming sessions. While actual games rarely stress Qualcomm’s flagship silicon as much as these tests do, temperature and sustained performance are important considerations if you’re a pro. emulator lover.

All things considered, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy doesn’t really move the needle in a meaningful way for everyday performance. But we expect it; This has been a similar trend with previous For Galaxy variants.

Despite the slightly higher clock speeds, GeekBench 6 shows that CPU performance is on par with other Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 devices. Given that today’s powerhouse CPUs are already overkill for most mobile workloads, users won’t notice the difference in day-to-day applications.

Where Samsung’s tweaked chip does stand out is shorter GPU performance sessions, but even that advantage is quickly lost under sustained workloads. An advantage in graphics benchmarks can certainly improve frame rates, but thermal tuning levels the playing field for longer and more demanding workloads, keeping performance in line with competing devices. This reinforces an important proposition: high performance numbers don’t tell the full story if they can’t be maintained. In practice, consistent performance and thermal management are more important than one-time benchmark wins.

Still, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in some of Samsung’s S26 series phones is a top performer. It won’t leave consumers wanting for performance, but it won’t turn into burning tiles in their hands. The next question is whether Samsung has global customers Exynos 2600 The versions of the Galaxy S26 lack the same level of extreme performance.