The Galaxy S22 Ultra is the largest phone out of the Galaxy S22 series line-up that was launched earlier this year. On top of an ultra smooth and luscious Dynamic AMOLED 2X display, a powerful 108MP quad rear camera, a huge 5,000mAh battery and an innovative S Pen stylus, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is notable for featuring the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor that enables it to easily go toe to toe with almost any other phone currently in the market for 2022. 

As Qualcomm’s most powerful mobile processor for the immediate future, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 powers the Galaxy S22 Ultra but how does it fare under actual field tests? Here’s the Galaxy S22 Ultra performance and benchmarks where we put it to the test!

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Performance and Benchmarks – What is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU

Brought into service earlier in 2022, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is a flagship-grade processor that is currently the most powerful mobile processor in Qualcomm’s line-up for smartphones. For the uninitiated, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is an octacore processor which succeeds the flagship grade Snapdragon 888 and Snapdragon 888+ processor seen in last year’s flagship phones.

Compared to its predecessor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is quoted to have a 30% increase in performance with 25% more efficiency. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is built on a 4nm process versus the 5nm process of its predecessor which makes it more efficient and consists of a high-performance 3.0 GHz Cortex X2 core, a trio of workhorse 2.5GHz Cortex A710 cores and a quartet of high-efficiency 1.8Hz Cortex A510 cores with an Adreno 730 GPU. Support for 5G connectivity via a Snapdragon X65 5G modem as well as WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity also comes baked in.

In terms of pedigree, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is smartphone royalty with the power and performance to tackle the most demanding applications and hardware like the Galaxy S22 Ultra. In Malaysia, the Galaxy S22 Ultra features the aforementioned processor paired with 12GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB of storage as well as a more affordable variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Performance and Benchmarks – Cooling, Heat Management and Thermal Dissipation

One of the most important aspects of ensuring sustained performance in a phone is in how it manages heat and vents heat away from critical areas like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor.

In the case of the Galaxy S22 Ultra, Samsung has developed a new gel Thermal Interface Material (TIM) that conducts heat 3.5x faster than conventional materials. Layered above this gel TIM is a layer nano-fiber material that shunts heat to the vapour chamber while protecting the application processor and other critical hardware from electro-magnetic interference that Samsung has dubbed as the nano-TIM. 

The vapour chamber itself has also been refined from prior versions with a durable double-bonded stainless steel structure that makes it thinner while covering more area to more efficiently shunt heat away from the gel TIM and nano TIM towards a final graphite layer. 

With these refinements in heat management, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is capable of offering better sustained performance in tandem with its efficient processor and intelligent firmware. 

In the demanding Wild Life Extreme Stress Test which constantly loops the tests to show how the phone handles under sustained heavy work loads, the Galaxy S22 Ultra offers solid sustained performance and after 20 loops over 20 minutes, it dips slightly after the 6th loop with a 1,766 best loop score but sustains it consistently afterwards until the 20th loop and a dip of 1,177 for the lowest loop score and a 66.6% stability.

Even after putting it through the wringer, the phone was mildly warm but wasn’t excessively hot to the point that it wasn’t wieldable with temperatures between 37°C to 42°C.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Performance and Benchmarks – Geekbench 5 and 3DMark

To test the Galaxy S22 Ultra at its full potential, the phone was set to Maximum processing speed in the pull-down settings tab which is quoted to be ‘best for short-term use with processing-intensive apps. Uses battery rapidly and tends to cause overheating’. By default, the phone is set to Optimised mode where processor speed is balanced with battery and cooling efficiency. For most day to day tasks, Optimised mode is more than sufficient.

Bear in mind that the Maximum processing speed settings are intended for most applications and usage while game oriented performance is another different kettle of fish and governed by Samsung’s built-in Game Launcher. 

Under Maximum processing speed, the Galaxy S22 Ultra managed a respectable score of 1,162 in single-core score and 3,076 multi-core score, an OpenCL score of 6,056 and a 5,710 Vulkan score. In terms of benchmarks results, the phone has a marked edge over everything else on the list including its predecessor, the S21 Ultra 5G.

In 3DMark under Maximum processing speed, the phone scored 1,097 points in Wild Life Extreme and 2,107 in Wild Life Extreme Unlimited.

In the Wild Life benchmark, it scored 6,914 points which beats 90% of the devices in the market and 6,531 points in Wild Life Unlimited. The Samsung Galaxy S22 performance achieved in these benchmarks easily puts it in the upper echelon of smartphones today.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Performance and Benchmarks – Gaming

While the Galaxy S22 Ultra is not intended as a gaming-centric phone and is a more general purpose flagship phone, it can hold its own in terms of gaming through sheer pixel crunching performance. 

In Call of Duty Mobile with maxed out settings with Graphics set to Very High and the Frame Rate set to Maximum with the high quality HD Resource Pack textures, the Galaxy S22 Ultra didn’t disappoint and ran smoothly without a hitch or framerate drops for a full battle royale match and through half a dozen Team Deathmatch firefights. 

The other extremely demanding game for smartphones is Genshin Impact, an RPG game that guzzles storage and system resources like mad but even with everything dialled up to maximum, it still ran without a hitch.

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Performance and Benchmarks – How does it handle?

As far as Galaxy S22 Ultra performance is concerned, Samsung’s flagship phone has more than enough power to tackle anything asked of it by the vast majority of general users. With  its chart-topping Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and its advanced gel TIM and nano TIM cooling hardware to help manage heat efficiently, the Galaxy S22 Ultra is easily capable of tackling the most demanding scenarios from work to gaming without breaking a sweat.

For a more holistic look on the phone, you can check out our Galaxy S22 Ultra review here as well as our first impressions here. For a bird’s eye view as to its camera performance you can check out our feature here and our S Pen feature here on what its stylus is capable of tackling.

In Malaysia, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra is available in your choice of four colourways which are Phantom Black, Phantom White, Green and Burgundy and your choice of three possible storage/RAM configurations.

The top of the line 12GB RAM/512GB model is available for RM5,899 while the 12GB RAM/256GB model is available for RM5,499. A more modest 8GB RAM/ 128GB model is available for RM5,099. To purchase, check out the official Samsung online store link here.