Asus ROG Phone 8/8 Pro review

Synthetic benchmarks

Having the latest and greatest chipset around is already expected of ROG Phones as they aim to be at the top of the mobile gaming scene constantly. This year is no exception, with the ROG Phone 8 and 8 Pro both rocking the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip.

Asus sources the most tricked-out versions of the current top-tier chipsets. Since its competitors have access to the same hardware, they also enhance the experience in other supplementary ways. Things like advanced cooling solutions, in-depth performance tuning, and user-accessible profiles and parameters to tweak. The ROG Phone 8 Pro is no exception.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is a 4nm chip with the cream of the crop of current Qualcomm hardware. Its CPU setup consists of one prime ARM Cortex-X4 core, working at up to 3.3GHz, five Cortex-A720 cores, clocked at up to 3.2GHz and another two Cortex-A520 cores, clocked at up to 2.3GHz. The CPU is accompanied by an Adreno 750 GPU.

As per Asus' own testing, the CPU inside the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro is about 30% faster than the one inside the ROG Phone 7 generation, and the GPU is around 25% faster. That's a pretty nice uptick in performance.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is paired with up to 24GB of LPDDR5X (8533Hz, just as last year) RAM and up to 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. Our review unit for the ROG Phone 8 Pro happens to be the top-tier 24GB/1TB one, so the ROG Phone 8 Pro is definitely putting its best foot forward for our testing here.

Transitioning into some actual synthetic benchmarks, we ran all of our tests at the default Dynamic mode, X Mode, and X Mode+, which only gets unlocked and substitutes the regular X Mode when you attach the AeroActive Cooler X to the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro. We've left all the other in-depth tuning sliders on default, cooled the phone between runs and had the AeroActive Cooler X manually set to max for those X Mode+ tests.

Let's kick things off with some CPU testing and GeekBench. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 inside the ROG Phone 8 Pro is clearly a very potent chip, only rivaled by the likes of the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 and the Apple A17 Pro. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 almost takes the top spot in the multi-core leaderboard, just slightly overshadowed by the Dimensity 9300. Single-core performance is still expectedly dominated by the Apple A17 Pro chip with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 taking the second spot, trailed closely by the Dimensity 9300.

Interestingly, the ROG Phone 8 Pro does pretty poorly in the single-core GeekBench test with X-Mode turned off. We can only imagine that this is part of the Asus tuning and is meant to save on battery power. Multi-core scores look fine across all modes, and once you do enable X Mode, the numbers for the single core test jump way up.

AnTuTu is very kind to the ROG Phone 8 Pro. It snatches up the top spots in both AnTuTu 9 and 10. It should be noted that AnTuTu tests and takes into account things like storage and RAM, so the copious amounts of memory in our ROG Phone 8 Pro might be helping scores.

It comes as no surprise that the Adreno 750 is an incredibly powerful GPU. It seems to currently be at the top of the food chain for total graphical performance on mobile.

Once again, just like with CPU performance, you might want to enable X Mode on the ROG Phone 8 Pro to take full advantage of its silicon without leaving any performance on the table.

3Dmark paints a very similar overall picture.

You can hardly do any better than the ROG Phone 8 Pro in Android mobile gaming performance. It crushes every benchmark we throw its way, and these arbitrary numbers translate into an excellent gaming experience backed up by some excellent high refresh handling.

Thermal design and thermal throttling

Cooling a modern smartphone is challenging, especially with a flagship chipset. We like to call the ROG Phone technically not "passively cooled" due to the existence of the AeroActive Cooler, but that is just technically true. The phone itself is still a passive, sealed thermal system. In fact, the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro is more sealed than ever with its IP68 ingress protection rating.

That means that there is no longer an AeroActive portal like on the ROG Phone 7 generation, and with that, Asus also lost the ability to do convection cooling on the ROG Phone 8. So, to make up for the loss, Asus upgraded the internal conduction cooling setup as best as possible on the ROG Phone 8.

Starting with the ROG Phone 6, Asus redesigned the phone's internals to have a central-positioned SoC, which, alongside the advanced cooling system, resulted in better thermals. This has been carried forward to the ROG Phone 7 and now the ROG Phone 8. As Asus calls it, the new "GameCool" system has an additional copper heatsink layer touching the central-mounted SoC and pulling heat away from it. The new heatsink is called a "Rapid Cooling Conductor," and it sits on top of the Boron Nitride layer, which is still in place in the ROG Phone 8/8 Pro.

The new Rapid Cooling Conductor is meant to pull heat away from the mainboard and dump it into the rear panel of the ROG Phone 8. And you can feel the system working in practice since that rear panel gets very hot.

With a prolonged stress test, the rear surface of the ROG Phone 8 Pro becomes almost uncomfortable to hold. This is arguably better since you want internal cooling prioritized over hand comfort, but it does also mean that the whole "360 degree Cooling System Gen 2", as Asus calls it, works a lot better with the AeroActive Cooler attached since it can significantly lower the rear surface temperature of the device.

Looking at our actual thermal-throttling test results, the ROG Phone 8 Pro does fairly well with prolonged stress and the entire passive cooling system seems to hold up for a good 20 minutes before it gets thermally saturated and gives way to quite aggressive thermal-throttling.

Dynamic mode thermal throttling

If you go for X-Mode without attaching the AeroActive cooler, the ROG Phone 8 Pro pushes itself harder for longer.

X Mode mode thermal throttling

Finally, we have the entire Asus "360-degree Cooling System Gen 2" working as intended with the AeroActive Cooler X installed and working at full blast, with both the fans spinning as fast as possible and the active peltier cooler working as hard as possible. As expected, the ROG Phone 8 Pro holds its performance steady for a lot longer, with the AeroActive Cooler X lending a hand.

X Mode+ with cooler thermal throttling

Overall, we praise Asus' advanced cooling solution for the ROG Phone 8 Pro. That being said, if you want to make the most of it, you need to get the AeroActive Coole X to ensure the best possible performance and hand comfort.

AeroActive Cooler X

Asus' signature active cooling fan accessory for the ROG phone line has undergone so many design iterations that it probably deserves an article of its own. The AeroActive Cooler 6 saw what was arguably the biggest and most radical change to date with the introduction of an active peltier cooling element inside the gadget. That was carried forward to the AeroActive Cooler 7 and now to the new AeroActive Cooler X or, as per the writing on the gadget itself - the AeroActive Cooler 8.

There is no new addition to the cooler this year. Quite the opposite, the AeroActive Cooler no longer has a built-in subwoofer like it did last year. It also shed a lot of volume and weight and lost two buttons. So, arguably, the AeroActive Cooler X represents a downgrade in many aspects. That being said, it does offer better cooling and efficiency.

Left: AeroActive Cooler X/8 • Right: AeroActive Cooler 7

The new design for this year is a pretty big departure from last year. You still get a very "gamer-y" aesthetic with bold lines. Asus has been swinging back and forth between relying solely on a USB Type-C port for connection and adding pogo pins like last year. This time around, the AeroActive Cooler X only has a single Type-C port as before. It passes through all of its features transparently (charging, HDMI out, etc.).

After skipping the 3.5mm audio jack on the AeroActive Cooler 6, Asus returned it on the AeroActive Cooler 7, and now it is still present on the AeroActive Cooler X/8.

Attachment of the AeroActive Cooler X is achieved via a spring-loaded latch mechanism that now has a button to release and a ratchet mechanism to close back up. The fit is very snug, and putting the cooler on and taking it off is relatively easy as long as you properly line up the Type-C port.

In case you were wondering what happens to the power button once the AeroActive Cooler X goes on, Asus thought of that and has added a piece of flexible rubber to "extend" the button outward, making it still usable. A bumper case for the phone comes with the AeroActive Cooler X in the same box and is naturally compatible with it.

Continuing with other functional bits on the device, it has programmable AirTrigger buttons, just like the AeroActive Cooler 7. Their number has been reduced from four to two, though. These feel great and are actually omnidirectional, which is great in practice. It means you can essentially press them in any spot you want and in any "direction," so to speak.

The AeroActive Cooler 8 has its own RGB lighting, which illuminates and shines through the middle transparent plastic bit and the small ROG logo. Once the accessory is on, this lighting will use the System lighting settings you already have dialed in for the RGB lights on the back of the phone. Or, in the case of the ROG Phone 8 Pro, a lighting menu will appear once the accessory is attached.

By the way, while this transparent plastic bit looks great while illuminated, we really don't like the plastic itself. It scratches really easily and just looks ugly once that inevitably happens. But that's us nitpicking.

The last functional bit is an extendable kickstand. This time, it comes up from the bottom of the AeroActive Cooler and generally does a great job supporting the phone. Its angle is not adjustable or anything fancy like that. You just get one setting.

On to functionality, then. The basic principle of operation for the AeroActive Cooler X is easy to understand - the cooler sits on the back of the phone, covering its "hot spot" in the middle, where the centrally-mounted PCB resides. There is a thermally conductive pad on the outside part, a copper plate, some radiators, and a fan inside. Technically, the design is not meant to pull heat away from the back of the phone but rather actively cool it.

The "special sauce", just like last year, is the peltier element, sometimes called a TEC. It is a thermoelectric piece that takes current and then uses that to make one of its sides cold and the other hot. So what is happening is that the AeroActive Cooler X is actively cooling down the back of the phone while the radiator and fan are actively cooling off and pulling heat off the TEC's hot side.

AeroActive Cooler X settings

The AeroActive Cooler X actually has its own settings menu within Armoury Crate, which, among other things, lets the user choose between four modes of operation. Smart is a sort of auto that monitors thermals and decides how much to power the fan and the peltier. Cool mode just uses the fan to dissipate heat without turning on the peltier. Frosty and Frozen modes have both the fan and the peltier working. Frosty has the peltier working with a lower current. Basically, as much as the phone can provide via its Side port. The AeroActive Cooler X needs external power hooked up in its top Frozen mode.

On the subject of noise, the AeroActive Cooler 7 is not particularly quiet. It is very much audible in any setting and can get particularly distracting in Frozen mode. Despite its big size, its fan is still relatively small, and there is simply no way around generating at least some noise. At least the fan noise can be easily drowned out by the Rog Phone 8 Pro speakers. Still, don't expect anything akin to a stealthy and quiet gaming experience with the AeroActive Cooler X attached.

Closing off the AeroActive Cooler X section, we should mention that despite being 29% smaller in overall volume and 10% lighter than the AeroActive Cooler 7, the new model still manages a 2.6x bigger chip cooling area, 1.1x the max fan speed and 1.2x overall thermal efficiency improvement. So, even though you are losing some features like a couple of programmable buttons and a subwoofer, you are getting a much easier-to-carry cooler that works better than last year's model.