While there’s plenty to unpack with the Pixel 10 series and its new Tensor G5 processor, one of the biggest hardware changes this year is the adoption of a brand new GPU architecture.
Google has switched from its long-running use of ARM’s Mali to Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR series. Specifically, the PowerVR DXT-48-1536, but without the ray-tracing capabilities that the series can support.
Early scepticism suggested that the move might not be much of an upgrade and potentially even a downgrade for the Pixel 10 series compared to last year. Thankfully, our initial tests suggest that isn’t the case — performance is up by somewhere in the region of 27%, at least as far as benchmarks go. However, temperatures are slightly higher than last year, resulting in more questionable sustained performance in our stress tests. A mixed bag, then.
Gamers hoping that the Tensor G5 would catch up with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple A18 Pro will no doubt be disappointed. However, few titles target the absolute pinnacle of mobile graphics performance, and plenty of games run pretty smoothly on older Pixels already.
What’s more important with a major architecture shift is that popular titles actually run. A rerun of the Samsung Exynos Diablo debacle certainly wouldn’t do the new Pixels any favours with the already less-than-favorable mobile gaming crowd. With that in mind, I set out to check that my Pixel 10 could actually run the most popular games out there.
Can it run… anything?
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
In the Android space, Immagination’s PowerVR architecture has mostly been deployed in budget products, so to test if the platform is capable of delivering in a flagship product, I tried to boot up a few of the more popular Android mobile games.
The good news is that PUBG, COD Mobile, Genshin Impact, Honkai Starrail, and Diablo Immortal installed and booted up correctly. I played around in all these titles for a few minutes apiece and didn’t notice any performance or graphical glitches.
I haven’t had time to directly compare the performance of these titles against last year’s flagship yet, but frame rates felt smooth to me on the default graphics settings — well above 30fps once I flipped on these games’ 60fps modes. I probably could have pushed the settings a little bit higher and been fine as well.
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