Asus ROG Phone 5 leak reveals 18GB of RAM — that's not a typo

Asus ROG Phone 3 review
(Image credit: Asus)

Powerful gaming phones are all the rage these days, but it looks like the Asus ROG Phone 5 will be taking that to a whole new level — it'll allegedly pack a massive 18GB of RAM.

Not only is that more RAM than you’d get in any other Android device — they typically offer between 6GB and 12GB — it’s also more than a lot of gaming laptops.

The phone isn’t due to launch until March 10, but we already know quite a lot thanks to new Geekbench listings (via MySmartPrice). Not only will the phone pack in 18GB of RAM, it’s also set to come with Android 11 and the latest Snapdragon 888 chipset. That’s the same as the one in the Samsung Galaxy S21, and the jewel in Qualcomm’s chip-making crown.

Of course, Geekbench is a benchmarking site, so there’s already some information on how well the Asus Rog Phone 5 performs. The phone clocked in a single-core score of 1,113, and a multi-score core of 3,468. 

That’s better than the Samsung Galaxy S21, which scored 1,048 and 3,302 during our benchmarking tests, and similar to the Galaxy S21 Ultra. The latter phone scored 1,123 on a single-core test and 3,440 on a multi-core test.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 12 range still dominates, with the standard iPhone 12 pulling in scores of 1,593 and 3,859. So no matter how much power Android phone makers stick into their devices, Apple still reigns supreme on raw performance.

The listing doesn’t reveal much else, but rumor is that the ROG Phone 5 will come with lots of amazing features. Among them are a 144Hz AMOLED display, from 512GB to 1TB of storage, three rear cameras, a 6,000mAH battery, ultrasonic shoulder triggers, dual USB-C ports and a secondary display on the back of the phone.

There’s also expected to be a more casual version of the ROG Phone 5, complete with less spectacular features and a price tag to match. That device could have between 12GB and 16GB of RAM, with 128GB to 256GB of storage.

Obviously we won’t be finding out for sure until the launch event next week. But it seems that ASUS is really going all in with mobile gaming, and is ensuring gamers have the hardware to do it properly. 

Tom Pritchard
UK Phones Editor

Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.