iPhone 15 Pro Max Gaming Review: Performance, Heat & Battery Drain

② Gaming Deep-Dive

Analysis based on Apple’s published specifications and attributed laboratory sources for this model. No measurement by FixUpPhone is claimed anywhere in this section.

What the laboratory could and could not show about frame rates

Honesty about frame rates starts with what Notebookcheck’s laboratory said it could not do. Testing this exact model in December 2023, the laboratory wrote that it could not yet present any frame-rate recordings, because the frame-rate tool it uses was not yet supported on this phone’s operating system, and that it would add them as soon as it could (that laboratory’s account). Any review that printed a recorded per-game frame-rate trace for this model from that laboratory would therefore be inventing one. What the laboratory did report, in words, is that gaming at maximum detail levels did not bring the phone out in a sweat, that it was the first phone in its tests able to run Genshin Impact at 120 frames per second, and that PUBG Mobile could also be played at a higher frame-rate level using the HD setting and Extreme frame rate (that laboratory’s account). This review prints those two game findings exactly as reported capability — a laboratory’s report that a game ran at a stated frame rate on its test unit — and not as a recorded trace, because the laboratory itself drew that line. No frame rate for any other game is printed, and no frame rate measured on a sibling or successor model is printed as this model’s.

Benchmarks: the harder numbers, labelled as benchmarks

Benchmarks are not games, but they are the harder numbers the laboratory published, and they belong here labelled as such. Notebookcheck’s laboratory recorded 3DMark Wild Life Extreme at 3,765 and Wild Life Unlimited at 15,260 (third-party laboratory measurements), and GFXBench Aztec Ruins High Tier at 55 frames per second onscreen and 61 frames per second offscreen, with the 4K Aztec Ruins High Tier offscreen test at 25 frames per second (third-party laboratory measurements). The onscreen figures are capped by the display’s refresh behaviour in those tests — onscreen tests in the laboratory’s table sit at 60 frames per second or below for this phone, which is a test-and-display interaction, not a claim that games cannot run faster, as the Genshin Impact report above shows. The offscreen figures, which render above the display’s rate, are the cleaner GPU comparison, and they show a flagship GPU of its generation rather than a runaway one: the laboratory notes that its GFXBench values stagnated at times and even fell in places against the competition. That mixed picture — a reported 120-frame game capability alongside middling benchmark deltas — is the honest gaming profile of this phone.

Heat under game load, and what it does to sustained play

Notebookcheck’s laboratory used Genshin Impact at the highest detail and frame-rate setting as its load test, because no sustained-load benchmark was available for its test conditions, and reported that the phone’s surface became very warm but never hit any critical values (that laboratory’s account). Its measured surface temperatures under that load reached a maximum of 45.8 °C on the upper side (average 41.4 °C) and 45.2 °C on the underside (average 40.4 °C), at a room temperature of 22 °C, with an idle upper-side average of 34 °C (all third-party laboratory measurements). Its 3DMark stress tests recorded stability of 78.9% on Wild Life, 65.4% on Wild Life Extreme and 66.1% on Solar Bay (third-party laboratory measurements), and the laboratory’s own summary is that the chip is not cooled as effectively as on the previous generation’s phone. For a gamer, the practical translation is that the first minutes of a demanding session and the second hour of it are different experiences: peak performance first, then a slower, warmer phone. Playing while charging, in sunlight, or in a thick case brings that second phase sooner, and a temperature warning — if one appears — is a stop-and-cool instruction, not a setting to dismiss.

Battery drain: bounded, not invented

No per-game battery-drain figure is published for this model in the laboratory source used, and this review prints none — not for Genshin Impact, not for PUBG Mobile, not for any other title. What can be bounded honestly is the range between the laboratory’s runtimes on its test unit: Wi-Fi web surfing at 19 hours 23 minutes, H.264 video playback at 33 hours 33 minutes, idle at 58 hours 34 minutes, and load at maximum brightness at 6 hours 24 minutes (all third-party laboratory measurements), with the laboratory noting that it performed its load test using Genshin Impact. That 6-hour-24-minute figure is therefore the laboratory’s heavy-load bound, and it is the closest this review comes to a gaming runtime — a bound, not a per-game drain rate, because brightness, settings, network and the individual game all move the real figure. Against that bound, Apple’s manufacturer claims when new — 29 hours of video, 25 hours streamed, 95 hours of audio — describe light, standardised playback, not gaming, and the two sets of figures should never be averaged into a gaming claim. On a used phone, the binding constraint is usually the battery itself: below 80% maximum capacity Apple treats the battery as consumed, and Apple’s September 2023 launch battery fee of $99 (no extra charge with AppleCare+ below 80%) is the restoration price for a gamer whose sessions have shortened.