Huawei Mate 90 Pro Max Hits Full Framerate in Genshin at 4.2W

Huawei launched the Mate 90 series on October 1 via a pre-recorded event, with the top-tier Mate 90 Pro Max debuting the Kirin 9050 Pro. Geekerwan's follow-up benchmarks produced three numbers worth remembering: 4.2W at full framerate in Genshin, a 10fps-plus average gain in Ananta (Neverness to Everness), and 9 hours 56 minutes of battery life from a 6800mAh cell. There is one condition attached to all of it. The efficiency only shows up in native HarmonyOS games.

What Geekerwan actually tested

The chip at the centre of this is the Kirin 9050 Pro. Its headline change is what Huawei calls "logic folding" — stacking two layers of logic circuitry to fit more transistors into the same footprint. The CPU also moved from a three-cluster to a four-cluster layout, ending up with 9 cores and 16 threads, with every big core supporting hyper-threading.

Huawei's own figures claim a 23% multi-core CPU gain and a 40% GPU rendering gain. The part hardware watchers actually care about is efficiency.

Game	Resolution	Measured result	Where it lands
Genshin Impact	890p	Full framerate at ~4.2W	Above some Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phones, near iPhone 17 Pro Max (A19 Pro)
Wuthering Waves	648p	Big framerate gain, big power drop	Above some Dimensity 9500 phones, near Snapdragon 8 Elite
Ananta	Native	+0.4W power, 10fps+ average gain	Roughly level with Dimensity 9500 and Snapdragon 8 Elite

Why power draw matters more than framerate for Genshin players

What 4.2W actually means

A phone is the size of a palm. Push the power up and three things arrive together: heat, thermal throttling and battery drain. A flagship that holds full framerate in Genshin at 4.2W is not buying framerate with wattage. Peak framerate is fun for three minutes. Efficiency decides whether you can grind Spiral Abyss for two hours straight.

Battery and efficiency did not fight this time

The Mate 90 Pro Max carries a 6800mAh battery, 800mAh more than the 6000mAh in the previous Pro Max. It clocked 9 hours 56 minutes in this test, 1 hour 42 minutes longer than its predecessor. That extra hour and 42 minutes cannot all be credited to the Kirin 9050 Pro — a bigger battery did its own share of the work.

The catch: native HarmonyOS games only

Every number in Geekerwan's test assumes one thing: the game runs natively on HarmonyOS. If a title has to go through EasyTong, an extra translation layer sits in the middle. The game still runs, but efficiency drops noticeably below the native version (source: Geekerwan report, via NetEase Tech, 2026-10-04).

The chip's ceiling is partly set by developers

Put differently, half of the Kirin 9050 Pro's real-world performance sits in the hands of game studios. The faster native HarmonyOS ports arrive, the closer Genshin and Wuthering Waves get to what the benchmark videos show. Before buying, check whether the game you actually play has a native build. That tells you more than a benchmark score.

Where the numbers stop being comparable

Split the two phrases apart. "Above some Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phones" and "close to the iPhone 17 Pro Max" are both range descriptions, not outright wins. Geekerwan measured efficiency, not raw performance.

Wuthering Waves deserves more caution. The Mate 90 Pro Max only supports 648p in that title right now. Framerate and power draw both improved a lot over the previous generation, but two phones running different resolutions do not belong on the same efficiency chart. That caveat cuts both ways: whenever a claim says "close to phone X", ask whether the resolution matched.

My take: Huawei finally stopped dodging the gaming question

For years, the thing you never worried about with a Huawei flagship was opening WeChat half a second slower. Sustained heavy gaming was the real question mark. What stands out about the Kirin 9050 Pro is simpler than a benchmark table: performance and power draw are moving in the same direction for the first time, instead of trading battery life for framerate.

For players in China, that is more useful than an extra 20% of peak performance. It has been a long time since Huawei's chips were part of a "can it game properly?" conversation. We track this kind of hardware testing and gaming news over at GameHub.

So what would you test first if you picked one up — Genshin, Wuthering Waves or Ananta? Drop your current phone in the comments.

FAQ

How does the Kirin 9050 Pro's gaming efficiency compare?

Geekerwan measured Genshin at 890p hitting full framerate at roughly 4.2W of system power, above some Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 phones and near the iPhone 17 Pro Max (A19 Pro) and some Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 devices.

Why is Wuthering Waves limited to 648p on the Mate 90 Pro Max?

That is the current adaptation and setting ceiling for the title, not a chip limitation. Framerate and power draw improved clearly over the previous generation, but comparing efficiency against higher-resolution phones is not a fair test.

Is this phone good for long Genshin or Wuthering Waves sessions?

Efficiency and battery figures point to yes: a 6800mAh cell measured 9 hours 56 minutes, 1 hour 42 minutes more than the previous model. The condition is that your game has a native HarmonyOS version — EasyTong-translated titles run less efficiently.

What is "logic folding" on the Kirin 9050 Pro?

It is Huawei's approach to stacking two layers of logic circuitry so more transistors fit in the same planar area. The CPU also moved to a four-cluster layout with 9 cores and 16 threads, with hyper-threading on the big cores.