Tensor is the Pixel’s secret sauce, empowering the series with AI smarts you can’t find elsewhere and solid-enough performance and battery life to last the day. However, Google has been quieter than in previous years about exactly what went into the Tensor G5 inside the Pixel 10 series.
The silence doesn’t bode well; companies usually scream their subtlest of improvements from the rooftops. Still, with Pixel 10 in hand, I’ve managed to discern the good and the bad of the Tensor G5’s new features. Here’s everything you need to know.
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CPUs we’re very familiar with
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Before getting into the specifics, one of the biggest changes with the Tensor G5 is that Google has moved manufacturing from Samsung Foundry to TSMC. Built on a 3nm process, the move should boost Tensor’s power efficiency, putting it on par with high-end chipsets from Apple’s A18 and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite.
While Tensor battery life has been decent, the manufacturing change should help a little and reduce temperature issues, too — at least in theory. As an example, Google states that Pixel 10 phones enjoy “30+ hours” of battery life compared “24+ hours” with the Pixel 9 series.
Turning to the CPU specifics, Google announced that the G5 contains one big core, five medium cores, and two little cores —no specific cores or even clock speeds were given. As we know, Google is typically a generation or two behind the latest Arm CPUs available, and that remains the case this generation. In fact, Google is using many of the same CPU cores as last year, but with higher clocks thanks to its smaller 3nm manufacturing process. The Tensor G5 sports a single Cortex-X4 core but clocked at a colossal 3.78GHz, five Cortex-A725s at 3.05GHz, and two power-efficient Cortex-A520s at 2.25GHz.
Google Tensor G5 Google Tensor G4 Google Tensor G3 Google Tensor G2 CPU
Google Tensor G5 1x Arm Cortex-X4 (3.78GHz)
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