Once again, Samsung’s latest flagship phone has been able to beat Apple’s most powerful iPhone in certain tests. This time, the Galaxy S25 Ultra had better GPU performance than the iPhone 16 Pro Max, as benchmark tests revealed.
Now, LaptopMag is among the publications claiming the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra brings not only an improvement to its predecessor but also compared to Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Max. While the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy falls behind the A18 Pro chip in single-core scores, the multicore scores are higher for the Samsung phone.
According to the publication, the iPhone had a 3,386 single-core score, 11.7% higher than the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 3,031. However, when talking about the multicore score average, the Galaxy’s Snapdragon 8 Elite beat the iPhone with a score of 9,820 to 8,306. Compared to the S24 Ultra, the new S25 phone also has a better performance at 7,249. This represents roughly 18.3% higher performance than Apple’s best phone.
3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited test also shows the Galaxy S25 Ultra crushing the iPhone 16 Pro Max, sustaining 29.95 frames per second compared to 22.4 fps for the iPhone. That being said, LaptopMag shows the iPhone still maintains an incredible lead in video processing, as it completed its Adobe Premiere Rush test in 21 seconds, while the Galaxy S25 Ultra took 52.4 seconds, taking longer than the S24 Ultra (42 seconds).
While some people have considered the new Galaxy S25 lineup a boring update, it brings incremental changes to Samsung’s best smartphones. BGR praises the new Galaxy S25 Ultra in our review as an iteration done right.
Despite the hardware upgrades, the new Galaxy S25 Ultra is all about the Galaxy AI suite with features like the Now Bar and the Cross App Action feature (Gemini integration). The Now Bar, for example, sits at the bottom of the lock screen and is similar to the iPhone’s Dynamic Island functionality. There’s no point dancing around it, as it’s clear where Samsung got its inspiration. But Samsung added an AI spin to its Dynamic Island take.
The Now Bar will grab information the AI thinks you’ll need at different points during the day. For example, the Now Bar will show weather information and commute suggestions in the morning. It might also surface music suggestions and remind you of events and promotions.
BGR will keep highlighting the differences between Apple and Samsung’s best phones as we learn more about them.
