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| iPhone 18 Pro Max with A20 Pro, Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4 branding |
The iPhone 18 Pro Max may not have won everyone over in recent battery-life comparisons. In fact, early tests suggest the endurance gap between Apple’s latest flagship and the iPhone 17 Pro Max isn’t exactly massive. But when the focus shifts from battery life to pure gaming performance, the story changes quickly.
YouTube channel Dame Tech recently ran both phones through two demanding titles—Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4—and made sure each device ran long enough for heat and thermal throttling to kick in. That matters, because peak benchmark scores only tell part of the story. Sustained performance is where a phone really proves itself.
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| Resident Evil 4 running on the iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max, showing the FPS difference. |
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| Resident Evil 4 graphics settings used for the iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max gaming test. |
Benchmark scores already favour the iPhone 18 Pro Max
Before looking at frame rates, the A20 Pro inside the iPhone 18 Pro Max already has a clear lead on paper. In Geekbench 6.7, the iPhone 18 Pro Max scores 4,725 points in single-core and 12,575 points in multi-core. The iPhone 17 Pro Max, by comparison, manages 3,883 and 10,017 points, respectively.
That puts the A20 Pro roughly 22% ahead in single-core performance and about 26% ahead in multi-core. The GPU gap is even wider. According to Notebookcheck, the A20 Pro’s Geekbench 6.7 Metal score reaches 64,069 points, while the A19 Pro GPU scores 45,683. That’s an advantage of around 40% for the newer chip.
If you want to see the full side-by-side gameplay, Dame Tech’s complete comparison is worth watching here: iPhone 18 Pro Max vs iPhone 17 Pro Max gaming test.
Resident Evil 4: a huge win for the iPhone 18 Pro Max
In Resident Evil 4, Dame Tech tested both phones at 2346 x 1080 resolution with a 60 FPS target and identical graphics settings. The iPhone 18 Pro Max averaged 58 FPS, with a 1% low of 49.6 FPS. The iPhone 17 Pro Max, meanwhile, averaged 38.6 FPS and dropped to a 1% low of 27.9 FPS.
That means the iPhone 18 Pro Max was around 50% faster in average frame rate, while its 1% low was nearly 78% higher. Because both phones were tested over an extended period, the result also highlights how much better the newer model handles heat build-up and sustained performance.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage shows a smaller but still important gap
In Assassin’s Creed Mirage, both phones were tested at High graphics settings and 1320p resolution. The iPhone 18 Pro Max averaged 30 FPS with a 29.8 FPS 1% low. The iPhone 17 Pro Max managed 25.3 FPS on average and a 21.9 FPS 1% low.
That works out to roughly a 19% improvement in average FPS and a 36% improvement in 1% lows. However, the average frame-rate gap doesn’t tell the whole story. Assassin’s Creed Mirage is capped at 30 FPS, and the iPhone 18 Pro Max is already hitting that ceiling. In other words, the phone may have more headroom than the numbers suggest.
Better cooling is doing a lot of heavy lifting
Apple appears to have paid more attention to thermals this year. A recent iPhone 18 Pro teardown revealed a significantly larger vapour chamber that makes direct contact with the A20 Pro, along with a new thermal-pad material and a repositioned SoC. Those changes help explain why the iPhone 18 Pro Max holds up better once heat starts to build.
That cooling improvement also makes next year’s rumoured iPhone 20 more interesting. Reports suggest the 2027 models could move to an A21 Pro-class chip, while other rumours point to a major 20th-anniversary redesign and a new silicon-anode battery. That battery technology could offer higher energy density and longer battery life, potentially making up for one of the weaker aspects of the iPhone 18 Pro series.
The bottom line
The iPhone 18 Pro Max may not be a dramatic battery-life upgrade over the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but it is clearly the better gaming phone. The A20 Pro delivers stronger benchmark results, and the improved cooling helps it maintain higher frame rates during long play sessions. If you care about mobile gaming performance—especially sustained performance—the iPhone 18 Pro Max looks like a serious step forward.
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| iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max gaming results in Assassin’s Creed Mirage and Resident Evil 4. |
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| Assassin’s Creed Mirage running on the iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max, showing the FPS difference. |