Two prime cores running at 5.01GHz. That’s the headline number buried inside the latest Geekbench listing for the Honor Magic 9 Pro Max, and it tells you everything you need to know about where flagship Android performance is heading in late 2026.
According to Gizmochina, a device with the model number WKL-AN20 has appeared in the Geekbench database, and the specs match up with what Honor has already confirmed for the Pro Max. The chip is listed as the QTI SM8975, which is widely expected to be the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro, also known in some circles as the 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. It’s an eight-core setup with two prime cores at 5.01GHz, three performance cores at 4.03GHz, and three efficiency cores at 3.74GHz. Graphics are handled by the Adreno 850.
The listing also shows 14.78GB of usable RAM, which rounds up to the 16GB tier Honor has already confirmed. And the software? Android 17 running under MagicOS. So Honor is shipping its next big phone on the freshest version of Android available. That’s a good sign for anyone who cares about software support and longevity.
On Geekbench 6, the Magic 9 Pro Max scored 3,448 in single-core and 9,353 in multi-core. Here’s where it gets interesting, and a little messy. The single-core score is actually lower than what the Magic 8 Pro posted on Geekbench with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 last year, which hit 3,664. But the multi-core score jumped by nearly 1,700 points, which suggests the Gen 6 Pro is much better at spreading work across all its cores. That’s not a bad trade-off for real-world tasks like photo editing, video processing, or anything that hammers multiple cores at once.
Still, take these numbers with some skepticism. Pre-production software on a leaked benchmark listing almost never reflects what the final shipping unit will deliver. Drivers, firmware, and OS optimization all move the needle significantly between early builds and retail units. This is a preview, not a verdict.
For context, the same SM8975 chip has already appeared in a Xiaomi 18 Pro Max Geekbench listing, where it scored 3,582 in single-core and 12,247 in multi-core. But that run was on Geekbench 7, not Geekbench 6, so you can’t line those numbers up side by side and draw clean conclusions. Different benchmarks, different scoring systems.
What this does tell us is that the SM8975 is making the rounds across multiple flagship devices ahead of their launches, which points to a competitive end-of-year season for Android fans. Honor, Xiaomi, and likely others are all building their top-tier phones around this chip, so the real differentiator will come down to software, cameras, and battery life rather than raw processor horsepower.
The Honor Magic 9 series is set to launch on September 28 in China. Key specs confirmed so far for the lineup include:
- Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro (SM8975) processor
- 16GB RAM option confirmed for the Pro Max
- Adreno 850 GPU
- Android 17 with MagicOS on top
- Multiple color and storage configurations
Pricing and global availability are still unknown, but if Honor keeps the same approach as previous generations, a global rollout should follow the China launch by a few months. Keep this one on your radar — the specs are there, now it’s just a question of whether Honor can execute on the full package.