The ROG Phone 6 series is the most diverse gaming phone line ASUS has to offer to date. While we all know about the ROG 6 and 6 Pro, there’s also another variant called the ROG 6D Ultimate. Aside from the Ultimate branding, the ROG 6D is “different” because it uses a different processor in the form of the Dimensity 9000+ instead of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 found on the ROG Phone 6 and 6 Pro.

What’s really different between the ROG Phone 6 Pro and 6D Ultimate? Which ASUS ROG gaming phone is the one for you? We break down the differences to help you determine which one is for you:

One can shoot 8K Videos

While both phones have the same set of cameras, only the ROG Phone 6 Pro (and its non-Pro sibling) are capable of shooting 8K video. This is because the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate’s Dimensity 9000+ only supports 4K video recording, and only Qualcomm so far makes processors that can shoot 8K video since the Snapdragon 865. This is an aspect that MediaTek has to catch up on, and we won’t be surprised if, say, the Dimensity 9100 will bring in support for 8K video recording.

 

Up to 16GB of RAM only

You’d probably wonder why the top-end ROG Phone 6D Ultimate only comes with 16GB of RAM, while the lower-tier (but still beastly) ROG Phone 6 Pro comes with 18GB RAM. The reason for that is the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate uses a newer and faster LPDDR5X RAM, which has more memory bandwidth and less latency. With that in mind, the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate can afford to have 2GB less RAM than the ROG Phone 6 Pro and deliver better performance. More on that later.

 

That “additional” Vent

While both the ROG Phones look virtually identical, the latter actually has a plastic notch on the back panel that houses an additional vent called the AeroActive Portal, which activates once you plug in the AeroActive Cooler. This nifty feature adds additional cooling to the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, giving you better thermal headroom when it comes to playing games.

 

A difference in performance

Now here’s where it gets interesting: if you compare both the ROG Phone 6 Pro and 6D Ultimate, the Snapdragon-powered 6 Pro is better in all benchmark scores by default. However, once you activate X-Mode on both phones, the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate posted higher scores across all benchmarks save for 3DMark Wild Life Extreme.

When it comes to actual gaming, both phones are simply a beast when playing graphics-intensive games like Genshin Impact at the highest possible settings.

Both phones can easily hit the 60FPS cap, but the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate can handle the frame cap more consistently than its Snapdragon-powered sibling.

And while we weren’t able to test the ROG Phone 6 Pro with MMORPG Tower of Fantasy, it is possible to hit the 90FPS frame cap of the game on the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, and we believe that you should get roughly the same results with its Snapdragon-powered sibling.

Slightly better battery life for Team Snapdragon

While both phones do have the same 6000mAh battery inside, the Snapdragon-powered ROG Phone 6 Pro lasts longer at 9 hours and 48 minutes based on PCMark’s battery benchmark test, making it one of the longest-lasting flagship phones we have tested in 2022 so far. The ROG Phone 6D Ultimate, on the other hand, has a shorter battery life of 17 hours and 9 minutes, which is still not bad for a flagship device.

Which ROG Phone is for you?

While the ROG Phone 6 Pro is priced at Php 64,995, the ROG Phone 6D Ultimate is more expensive at Php 69,995. However, the 6D Ultimate does include the AeroActive Cooler out of the box, which is valued at Php 4,995. That makes the 6D Ultimate have roughly the same price as the 6 Pro–assuming that you missed out on its pre-order promo last August.