Don’t buy a new phone just for gaming, last-gen flagships still perform just as well

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Credit: Robert Triggs / Android AuthorityThe latest flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset is blazing fast in benchmarks, and with more smartphones equipped with the chip now hitting the market, we’re starting to see whether these purported gains hold up in real-world workloads.Looking specifically at graphics and gaming, Qualcomm claims 23% better graphics performance and up to 20% lower power consumption versus last year. Benchmark results back this up; this year’s flagship phones fly past their predecessors, suggesting a truly next-gen experience even over models that are only a year old. However, some phones have proven pretty hot under pressure, leaving many of us wondering if we’re hitting the ceiling of graphics performance in a compact mobile form factor.