On October 25, Xiaomi had officially unveiled the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus as the first Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 powered smartphone in the world. Despite new processors like to promise major boosts, the real world benchmarks show that the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 hardly builds on the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 from last year’s Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus.
Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 performance: Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus
Real-world tests of the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4-powered Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus show that Qualcomm’s “new” SoC is just a renamed Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 with a marginally higher clock frequency.
For single-core and multi-core test on Geekbench, Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus score up to 1,289/3,294. That marks only a modest gain versus the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3-powered Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus’ scores of 1,156 and 3,212 here. Core configuration found on Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 over a year ago means that, in CPU-bound day-to-day workloads, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 displays performance that’s virtual cliffs from the last-generation chips, hitting an effective performance level of nearly three in 4 tests.
Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 vs Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 CPU and GPU
The SnapdraQon 7s Gen 4 gets its small CPU performance gain through an overclocked prime core (2.71 GHz vs 2.5 GHz). For comparison, the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus with Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 achieved a score of 277,639 on CPU test on AnTuTu trailing the new phone by roughly 12%.
Graphics duties are still handled by an Adreno 810 GPU, just like the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. This translates to a 7% gain, according to Qualcomm, and benchmarks appear to confirm this. In terms of performance, the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus achieved a score of 4,730 in the Vulkan test on Geekbench, while the Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus scored 4,495 (Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 vs. Snapdragon 778G+). Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 is up to 37% faster compared to its predecessor on AnTuTu with GPU scores going from 195,994 (Snapdragon 7s Gen 3) to 237,833 (Snapdragon 7s Gen 4). The 3DMark WildLife Extreme showed results climbing from 1,054 to 1,121.
In summary, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 performance will be roughly 10% higher in both CPU and GPU compared to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3.
Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus: Should You Upgrade?
While marketed as a next-gen chipset, the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 (it is also on the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus, by the way) inside the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus is actually best described as an incremental upgrade to the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3. The performance differences between the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus and Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus is unlikely to matter to most users.
For existing Redmi Note 14 Pro Plus with Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 users, there is no real step-up to the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus with Snapdragon 7s Gen 4. Alternatively, the Poco X7 Pro is a far more capable phone and also a better value for money proposition in the same price band.
FAQ
Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 is essentially Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, with only small improvements, but around 10% better in benchmarks.
Upgrading is not worth it, though. There are negligible performance gains with the Snapdragon 7s Gen 4, so the experience is going to feel almost the same.
Not to say that the Redmi Note 15 Pro Plus is not good enough, but for the same price range, the Poco X7 Pro is better overall.
