5 gigahertz in the phone. Xiaomi 18 Pro Max was shown with a processor nobody has had yet

Xiaomi hasn’t shown what its next flagship will look like yet, but we already know its performance. Xiaomi 18 Pro Max has appeared in Geekbench’s database and revealed a chip that Qualcomm has not officially commented on yet.

Updated: Xiaomi 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max have already been officially unveiled — you can find their final specs and prices in our article from the launch.

The Snapdragon that will go past five gigahertz

The phone is listed under the Chinese model identifier M1544F and runs on a chip with the code SM8975. It’s expected to be called Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro, although Qualcomm’s final name hasn’t been confirmed.

What’s interesting is the core configuration. Eight cores are split into three tiers — three cores at 3,74 GHz, three at 4,03 GHz, and two that jump up to 5,11 GHz. For comparison, the current Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in phones like the POCO F9 Ultra tops out at 4,6 GHz. So you’re looking at a jump of over half a gigahertz between generations, which is unusually big for mobile chips. The graphics are said to be handled by Adreno 850.

Small note about the images: Xiaomi 18 Pro Max hasn’t been officially shown yet, so the renderings above and below are visualizations based on earlier leaks, not photos of the finished phone.

3 582 and 12 247 points — but watch out for the test version

The unit tested achieved 3,582 points in the single-core test and 12,247 in the multi-core test. In the graphics section it was 26,210 points in the OpenCL test and 29,934 in Vulkan. The record also shows 11 GB of available memory, which corresponds to 12 GB RAM, and a system running Android 17 with HyperOS 4.

Now for the important part that’s easy to miss: this is Geekbench 7, not the sixth one. The new test version counts things differently, so these numbers can’t be compared with results you know from the last few months — including benchmarks of Xiaomi’s own XRING O3 chip. Putting them side by side would give a totally distorted picture.

It also applies that this is a pre-series unit with unfinished software. With such phones, results between different runs commonly vary, and the final numbers are usually higher.

What we know so far about the 18 Pro Max

This benchmark is just one piece of the puzzle. From previous leaks, the top model is said to come with a 200 MPx dual camera and a much larger secondary display on the back, which could grow up to four inches.

There’s also talk of a battery around 8,500 mAh, which would make the 18 Pro Max one of the most long-lasting flagship phones on the market. These are all leaks for now, not confirmed specs.

Good news for us

While Xiaomi 17 Pro stayed exclusive to China, for the new generation it should be different. According to the information so far, Xiaomi 18, 18 Pro, and 18 Pro Max will head to Europe — it would be the first series where we also get the top model.

A new Snapdragon and Dimensity 9600 are expected to be announced later this month, and benchmark results have already shown competitive phones like the Vivo X500 Pro Max, Oppo Find X10 Pro Max, and iQOO 16. So the first official specs for the 18 Pro Max probably won’t take long.

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