Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 runs hot, and not all phones can handle it

However, there’s one significant caveat — graphics stress tests hit blistering highs of 56°C to maintain peak performance over time. That’s far too hot to hold the phone comfortably. The only reason the REDMAGIC didn’t buckle under such extreme heat is its elaborate liquid cooling system and fan setup.

But what happens to phones that don’t feature such an elaborate cooling setup? Well, I’ve run the new realme GT8 Pro through the same tests to see how it stacks up.

First, the phone performs reasonably well in GeekBench 6. However, the realme GT8 Pro’s multi-core performance is approximately 12.4% slower than Qualcomm’s best-case setup, a significant deficit; however, single-core results are just 5.3% behind. That makes it slightly slower than the REDMAGIC 11 Pro as well. But let’s look at 3DMark’s graphics stress tests to see how heat stacks up.

Thankfully, realme is more conservative than Nubia in terms of temperatures (at least without boost mode enabled), capping the phone at 44.1°C across all of our tests. Still, that’s hotter than most mainstream flagships, which typically aim to stay closer to 40°C for handheld comfort.

To stay within that temperature range, the GT8 Pro sacrifices a significant portion of its performance — dropping to just 28.6% of its peak in the demanding Solar Bay test and 38.9% in the older Wildlife benchmark. No matter how you slice it, that’s a major concern, especially compared to last year’s model, which never dropped more than 70% of its performance in these tests, albeit at the expense of higher temperatures. Although we initially had to trick the GT7 Pro into completing the test via a stealth benchmark, so it’s not like overheating is a new issue here.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take more than four to six stress-test runs for the realme GT8 Pro to fall behind the GT7 Pro, resulting in the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 performing worse than its predecessor under sustained load. That’s undoubtedly bad for realme’s flagship, but also concerning for other handsets that’ll be sporting Qualcomm’s latest silicon.

With two Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 handsets in hand, we have two contrasting pictures of how Qualcomm’s latest chip can shape next-gen performance and handsets.

On one hand, there’s the REDMAGIC 11 Pro, which throws caution to the wind to deliver maximum performance and stability. If you want to see the best of what the 8 Elite Gen 5 has to offer, this is probably it. However, this is only possible because the phone features an advanced cooling system that mainstream smartphones certainly won’t.

By contrast, the realme GT8 Pro adopts a more pragmatic approach to thermals (and likely battery life), but it cannot sustain the 8 Elite Gen 5’s peak performance for long. While the chip is clearly very capable, realme’s latest flagship makes it clear that we probably won’t benefit from it fully without caveats.

So what does this mean for mainstream flagships heading our way in the coming months? Well, crystal ball gazing is notoriously fraught, but the data here suggests we’re almost certainly looking at some compromises. Last year’s handsets were hot under stress, and the 8 Elite Gen 5 doesn’t look to have solved that; in fact, it could even be worse based on the realme result. Like last year, some brands will handle the chip even more conservatively to keep temperatures under control, while others will target peak performance at the expense of heat.

While many mobile games won’t push the GPU as hard as these tests, heat and throttling remain real concerns. Demanding 3D emulators and newer 120fps Android games can still trigger slowdowns during extended play. Based on what we’ve seen so far, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 delivers excellent short-term power, but sustained peak performance remains out of reach for most mainstream smartphones lacking advanced cooling.