OnePlus 15R Performance Review: Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Stress-Tested With Games & Benchmarks

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-Robin John

Published: Wednesday, December 17, 2025, 20:30 [IST]

The OnePlus 15R has now launched globally, and it sticks closely to what the R series has always done well: deliver strong performance without pushing flagship pricing into uncomfortable territory. These phones have typically been about value, especially for users who care more about power than premium extras.

Think of the OnePlus 15R as a slightly trimmed-down version of the OnePlus 15. While the OnePlus 15 made headlines as the first phone to launch with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in India, the 15R comes powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5. It’s still a performance-focused chip, just positioned for a more competitive price segment, which should land somewhere around the ₹45,000 mark.

I spent some time with the OnePlus 15R and put it through a round of benchmark runs and gaming stress tests to see how the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 actually holds up inside this phone.

Inside the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 is built on a 3nm process and comes with an octa-core setup, featuring two prime cores clocked at up to 3.8GHz and six performance cores running at up to 3.32GHz. It uses Qualcomm’s third-generation Oryon cores, and on paper at least, the gains look solid. Qualcomm claims up to a 36% bump in CPU performance along with a 42% improvement in power efficiency over the previous generation.

GPU details are still under wraps, but it’s an Adreno chip as expected. Qualcomm says graphics performance is up by 11%, while power efficiency sees a much bigger jump at 28%. There’s also an upgraded Hexagon NPU onboard, which is claimed to be 46% faster, helping with heavier on-device AI tasks.

OnePlus 15R Benchmark Breakdown

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 goes head-to-head with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chips found in phones like the OnePlus 13, iQOO 13, and OnePlus 13s, and in most cases, it comes out on top. The same holds true when you line it up against last year’s OPPO Find X8 powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9400, and even Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro with the A19 Pro. However, the current gen flaghsips like the OPPO Find X9 with the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 and the OnePlus 15 with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 continue to have a higher score, with the latter sitting a tier above everything else.

What this tells us is that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5’s core configuration continues to prioritise raw performance. CPU scores comfortably outpace the iPhone 17 Pro, the OnePlus 13, and the rest of the pack. GPU performance is where things even out a bit, with the Adreno 830 inside the Snapdragon 8 Elite holding a slight edge.

Thermals, meanwhile, are well under control. During our AnTuTu run, the OnePlus 15R started at around 33°C and peaked at roughly 44°C, which is perfectly reasonable for a device pushing this level of performance.

With a 2681 single-core and 8752 multi-core score, it comfortably sits above phones like the Galaxy S25 FE’s, which still trails quite a bit in both single and multi-core performance. That said, phones like the OnePlus 15, iQOO 13, Find X9, and even the OnePlus 13 stretch their legs further, especially in multi-core workloads, showing what more aggressive tuning can do. The iPhone 17 Pro and OnePlus 15 continue to dominate single-core performance, as expected, while Android flagships hover closer together on the multi-core front.

In the Steel Nomad Light stress test which runs for 20 minutes, the OnePlus 15R starts strong with a best loop score of 1550, but things cool off once the load becomes sustained. The score dips to 1234 at its lowest, translating to 79.6% stability, which is decent. In simple terms, the phone can deliver solid performance in short bursts, but it does ease off a bit when pushed continuously to keep heat and power draw in check.

OnePlus 15R 2-Hour Gaming Test

We ran the OnePlus 15R through our usual 2-hour stress test gaming loop which includes benchmarks run, BGMI gameplay, Call of Duty Mobile gameplay, and Genshin Impact gameplay. This essentially tests sustained load on the smartphones in a non-AC room, and the battery drop throughout.

The OnePlus 15R supports the Smooth + Ultra Extreme setting, which basically means 120fps gameplay at lower graphics. Over a 20-minute session, the phone stayed very consistent, averaging around 119fps the whole time. The 5% lows also look good, which tells us stutters were minimal. Thermals were under control too, with the phone peaking at about 41.3°C. Overall, the game ran smoothly from start to finish without any issues.

In Call of Duty: Mobile’s Team Deathmatch mode, the OnePlus 15R lets you push things up to Low graphics and 165fps, thanks to its 165Hz display. In our testing, it averaged around 162.2fps, with the 5% lows sitting at 161fps, so performance stayed very consistent. Power draw does go up slightly in this mode, crossing the 6W mark.

In Genshin Impact, with graphics set to High and FPS locked at 60, the game ran smoothly without any noticeable frame drops or stutters. The 5% lows tell the same story, dipping only to about 53fps. Thermals stayed consistent with our other tests, while power consumption dropped to around 4.25W. After a little over two hours of gameplay, the OnePlus 15R’s 7,400mAh battery had dropped to roughly 67%, which is quite excellent given the load.

Verdict

What the OnePlus 15R does well is consistency, and that’s similar to what its elder sibling, the OnePlus 15, also managed during my tests. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 delivers strong CPU performance, stable 120fps and 165fps gaming where supported, and manages to do so without pushing thermals or power draw too far out of line. Battery drain during extended sessions is also quite excellent, and performance doesn’t fall off a cliff over time. In short, the OnePlus 15R makes sense if you want near-flagship performance for gaming and everyday productivity without paying full flagship prices.