Multiple flagship smartphones with the new Snapdragon 8 Elite are set to go on sale in China with Realme‘s GT 7 Pro beginning on November 4. The Snapdragon 8 Elite offers a great performance improvement on paper but early reviews turning up for devices already in the hands of some reviewers, such as in an Android Authority write-up and another from Digital Trends, would suggest otherwise for the Realme phone in question.
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More About the Snapdragon 8 Elite Performance
The Realme GT 7 Pro, powered by Qualcomm’s latest chipset, aims to set a benchmark with custom Oryon CPU cores, including two prime cores at 4.32GHz and six performance cores at 3.53GHz. While Qualcomm states the Snapdragon 8 Elite is 45% faster for processing and 40% faster for graphic performance, results have been uneven in early evaluations.
While the chip has enticing specs, some early benchmarks have shown troubling overheating problems. The GT 7 Pro was unable to pass GPU stress tests, as both Android Authority and Digital Trends reported. Under heavy stress tests with 3DMark such as Wild Life or Solar Bay, the unit would issue high-temperature warnings and then shut down or throttle back to prevent damage. Reported temperatures reached as high as 46°C, beyond the normal safety margin for smartphones.
In fact, benchmarks that were hidden from its optimization wrapped up pretty easily, which indicates that those benchmark-hacking settings could be driving higher performance, but at the cost of thermal control. These ‘targeted optimizations’ have been recognized by Realme themselves, as they’re a feature that gets toggled when the phone detects a benchmark, which likely explains the high temps and the phone subsequently shutting down.
To be honest, in the synthetic tests apart from the peaks, the device runs without any major overheating except due to the Realme GT 7 Pro. The temperature rises reported by Digital Trends after playing Asphalt Legends Unite for over 30 minutes have remained relatively minimal, indicating that any heat challenges facing the Snapdragon 8 Elite seemed to be chiefly confined to artificial stress testing—at least as far as regular everyday use goes.
In comparison with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3) and Apple iPhone 16 Pro (A18 Pro), the GT 7 Pro shows impressive gains. It scored a remarkable 9425 in Geekbench 6 multi-core tests, surpassing the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 7104. However, the disguised Geekbench results revealed up to a 63% drop in single-core scores, suggesting potential manipulation by Realme.
Realme has confirmed that it is developing an update to address overheating during benchmarks. With software refinements to improve heat management without sacrificing performance, the GT 7 Pro could fully unlock the Snapdragon 8 Elite’s potential. Given that other devices with the Snapdragon 8 Elite handle benchmarks without overheating, Realme’s initial software seems to be the primary factor.
FAQs
Does the Realme GT 7 Pro overheat in regular use?
No, the overheating mainly occurs during synthetic benchmark tests. In everyday use and standard gaming, it runs smoothly with minimal temperature increase.
Is Realme addressing the overheating issue?
Yes, Realme has confirmed it’s working on a software update to improve heat management during benchmarks.
