OnePlus 15 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5) vs iPhone 17 Pro Max: stress tests, overheating and gaming performance

Max Tech compared the new OnePlus 15 powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and the OnePlus flagship unexpectedly stumbled in one of the stress tests. Early on, the phone made a strong impression: solid build, a high‑quality display, and respectable audio. In synthetic benchmarks, the chipset likewise delivered plenty of power.

But when running the extreme 3DMark Wild Life stress test, the device overheated, reaching 52°C before crashing out of the app. A thermal camera also showed heat spreading unevenly across the body. By contrast, the iPhone 17 Pro Max completed the same test without errors and only warmed up to 40°C, with heat distributed more evenly.

Because of the overheating, the OnePlus 15 automatically disabled features such as the flashlight and hotspot to stabilize its temperature. However, in gaming tests the phone fared better: no overheating was observed, and performance stayed steady. Taken together, the results suggest thermal management that handles real‑world gaming more confidently than synthetic torture runs, yet still leaves room for improvement under sustained extreme load.