The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra may be the very best that Android has to offer, but it is still slower than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, at least in synthetic benchmarks. The Galaxy S23 Ultra was unveiled alongside the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 Plus. It brings a few notable upgrades over the Galaxy S22 Ultra, including a faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chipset and a 200MP primary camera, the first on a Samsung smartphone. Priced starting at $1,199, the Galaxy S23 Ultra will go head-to-head with the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Despite their similar positioning, the Galaxy S23 Ultra could be substantially slower than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, if benchmark scores are anything to go by. As can be seen from a list prepared by Compare Dial, Geekbench scores suggest that Qualcomm’s overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform for Galaxy is still slower than Apple’s A16 Bionic, both in single-core and multi-core workloads. While the iPhone 14 Pro Max notched up 1,874 points in the single-core test and 5,384 points in the multi-core benchmark on Geekbench, the S23 Ultra could only manage 1,480 and 4,584 points, respectively.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max Is Super-Fast
Not only is the Galaxy S23 Ultra slower than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, it is also slower than the previous-generation iPhone 13 Pro Max which is powered by the A15 Bionic. As per the benchmarks, the iPhone 13 Pro Max racked up 1,710 points in the single-core and 4,669 points in the multi-core tests on Geekbench, which are also significantly higher than what Samsung’s latest flagship managed.
On the plus side, the S23 Ultra seems to be notably faster than its predecessor. According to the table, the S22 Ultra scored only 926 points in the single-core test and 2,911 points in the multi-core benchmark, meaning the new model is more than 50 percent faster than its predecessor on both counts. However, it’s not immediately clear how much the higher benchmark scores will translate to faster performance in the real world.
The latest figures suggest that Apple’s A-series mobile chips retain their crown as the fastest in the smartphone industry, ahead of the flagship offerings from Qualcomm and MediaTek. That said, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, especially the Samsung-exclusive version found in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, seems to have greatly reduced the gap with Apple’s latest A-series SoC, so it will be interesting to see if Qualcomm can finally catch up with Apple in the next few years.
