Tech

He transforms his Xiaomi Mi 9 into a powerful gaming smartphone for only 30 euros

Gaming smartphones are often quite expensive, which is why a modder decided to buy an old Xiaomi Mi 9 and turn it into a real gaming smartphone by modifying part of its technical sheet.

Xiaomi Mi 9 case
Credit: Geekerwan / YouTube

While looking for an affordable smartphone to modify, YouTuber Geekerwan came across a Xiaomi Mi 9 for just 100 euros on the Chinese second-hand device market. As a reminder, this smartphone dates from 2019, and it was at the time one of the best quality-price ratios on the market thanks to its high-end Snapdragon 855 chip.

The problem is that to be able to make it a phone that can be used on a daily basis, Xiaomi had to make a lot of concessions. The YouTuber therefore took up the challenge of modify the Xiaomi Mi 9 in depth to make it a real gaming smartphone.

It installs three batteries in the Xiaomi Mi 9

First of all, as we could see in our test, the autonomy offered by the 3300 mAh battery was not one of the strong points of the smartphone. With the most recent games, the smartphone would surely not be able to last more than a few hours with such a small battery.

xiaomi mi 9 battery
Credit: Geekerwan / YouTube

Geekerwan therefore opened the device and installed two other batteries of 3300 mAh each, to allow the smartphone to offer an giant accumulator with a total capacity of 9900 mAh. The smartphone is already starting to look more like an external battery than a phone. He then modified the source code of the device so that Android takes into account the other two new batteries when recharging.

Also Read – Best gaming smartphones: which model to buy in 2022?

The Snapdragon 855 and the screen have been overlocked

Qualcomm hasn’t made much progress in the CPU performance of its smartphone processors for several years. So the Snapdragon 855 is still a viable option on most games.. However, its GPU is no longer powerful enough to take advantage of the latest fashionable titles in a suitable way.

Xiaomi Mi 9 gaming
Credit: Geekerwan / YouTube

As a reminder, the Snapdragon 855 offers 8 CPU cores, with a Cortex-A76 performance core clocked at 2.84 GHz, three A76 cores clocked at 2.4 GHz and 4 A55 cores at 1.8 GHz. The problem is that on games such as Genshin Impact, the chip is throttling and cannot exceed 2 GHz. Geekerwan therefore had the idea ofoverclock the CPU so that his hearts may stay constantly at maximum frequencies. On the side of Adreno 640 GPU, this has gone from a frequency of 585 MHz to 840 MHz, or 43.6% more.

Xiaomi Mi 9 screen
Credit: Geekerwan / YouTube

For the Xiaomi Mi 9 to really be considered a gaming smartphone, Geekerwan should alsoincrease the frequency of the 6.4-inch AMOLED FHD+ screen beyond 60 Hz. The device managed to maintain a maximum frequency of 81 Hz for the screen, but the color accuracy deteriorated a lot. The YouTuber therefore preferred limit the screen to 75 Hz. We are therefore far from the 144 Hz of the ASUS ROG Phone 5s Pro or even the Lenovo Legion Duel Phone 2, but we remind you that the smartphone only cost 100 euros.

The Xiaomi Mi 9 is equipped with a fan to cool the components

After overclocking the GPU, CPU and screen, you can imagine that it would be impossible for Geekerwan to use the smartphone without it overheating. To avoid this, the YouTuber has installed a small fan at the back. Since he was a little too big, Geekerwan simply removed the three cameras from the smartphone. Finally, all that was missing wasa 3D printed shell to be able to take advantage of this new monster of power.

Xiaomi Mi 9 fan
Credit: Geekerwan / YouTube

According to the benchmarks, the performance gains are impressive. While a classic Mi 9 scores around 856 points on 3DMark Wild Life Extreme, this personalized Mi 9 managed to reach 1207 points, a gain of 40%. It almost reaches the performance of a Snapdragon 870 from 2021.

Xiaomi Mi 9 benchmark
Credit: Geekerwan / YouTube

On Genshin Impact, a Xiaomi Mi 9 will run around 39 FPS, but the custom Mi 9 averages 50 FPS thanks to the overclocking of the processor, i.e. a 25% performance gain. The device therefore becomes a gaming smartphone fully capable of enjoying the latest video games, and even ofemulate PS2 games.

Personalizing the smartphone will only have cost the YouTuber 30 euros. This kind of modification is unfortunately not within everyone’s reach. If you’re looking for a great gaming smartphone at an affordable price, Xiaomi unveiled a new Poco F4 GT with triggers yesterday.

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