Earlier this week, a device believed to be the standard Samsung Galaxy S23 appeared on Geekbench with an impressive set of benchmark numbers for a pre-release phone that gave the iPhone 14 a run for its money.
Now another device – SM-S918U (opens in new tab) — has appeared on the benchmarking site, and it’s one that SamMobile (opens in new tab) thinks to be the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Since the internals listed are identical – the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and 8GB of RAM – the numbers are as close as you’d expect. The S23 Ultra achieves a single-core score of 1,521 and a multi-score of 4,689.
But while these are a big improvement over the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (which achieved scores of 1,240 and 3,392 respectively), they’re not as impressive as the upcoming near-identical numbers on the base S23 for one simple reason: the competition for the Ultra variant is considerably harder.
It’s not a prof
When discussing the S23’s scores, we noted that it overshadowed the iPhone 14’s multi-core performance (4,553), even if it lagged behind the single-core metric (1,727). That’s important, because the Samsung Galaxy S23 will likely be in the same range in price as the standard iPhone 14 when it arrives on store shelves.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, if the form of the past has anything to do with it, will be up against the iPhone 14 Pro, which uses Apple’s faster A16 chip. Our benchmarks gave the A16 scores of 1,891 in single-core and 5,469 in multi, leaving even those impressive S23 Ultra numbers in the dust.
The iPhone 14 Pro starts at $999, with the iPhone 14 Pro Max going for $1,099. In comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has a suggested retail price of $1,199. With prices rising in global supply chains, it wouldn’t be surprising if the S23 Ultra added a few bucks too.
Of course, a smartphone is about more than just its sheer speed, and Samsung will likely justify the cost with extras Apple just can’t match, like S-Pen support and a rumored 200MP camera.
And to be fair, these benchmarks are more for bragging rights than any real, noticeable performance benefit in everyday use. Both will run the latest apps fluently for years to come, and you wouldn’t notice a difference unless you had the two side by side.
Nevertheless, if these benchmark numbers don’t improve with optimizations closer to release, it looks like the best Android phones may be at least one more generation behind Apple’s flagships in terms of raw speed.
Next: Here are the 5 biggest rumors so far about the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.