Well, friends, the day has finally come: Google Pixel day. Today is the day that Google will officially reveal the Pixel 10 series after months of leaks, and it’s a day we should all be excited about. Instead, a lot of Pixel fans are upset and complaining.
Those complaints stem from a last-minute Pixel 10 Pro XL benchmark leak, supposedly showing just how fast Google’s new Tensor G5 chip is. Assuming the benchmarks are legit, the good news is that the Tensor G5 is faster than the Tensor G4. However, the G5 still trails behind Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite — and that’s what has some people furious.
Redditors have called this “pathetic,” “sad,” “a f***ing joke,” and so on. But I’ve got to be honest — I couldn’t care less about any of this. And for most of you reading this, you shouldn’t care either.
What do you think of these leaked scores if true? 1546 votes I'd be happy with these scores 8 % It's okay but could be better 17 % I'd be disappointed 43 % I don't care about benchmarks 32 %
Why you shouldn’t read too closely into these benchmarks
As we head into today’s Made by Google event, the Tensor G5 chip is almost a bigger deal than the Pixel 10 phones themselves. We expect the G5 to be Google’s first 3nm chip and the first Tensor chip manufactured by TSMC rather than Samsung Foundry.
Those two “firsts” should translate to numerous upgrades over the Tensor G4, performance being one of them. And as we see from these benchmarks, it looks like that’s what we’re getting. If we take these leaked benchmarks at face value, the Pixel 10 Pro XL has almost a 22% increase in single-core CPU performance compared to the Pixel 9 Pro XL, along with a staggering 46% increase in multi-core performance.
That’s an impressive year-over-year upgrade, and it’s one I just can’t be upset about. But that’s clearly not how everyone feels. Whether it’s the fact that these GeekBench scores are still lower than Snapdragon 8 Elite phones or that the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s GPU scored lower than the Pixel 9 Pro XL, a lot of folks are already ready to write the Tensor G5 off even before they’ve used the chip themselves.
Joe Maring / Android Authority
I think there are two ways to view this, both of which make this complaining look a little ridiculous.
On the one hand, let’s say these benchmarks are 100% accurate. If that’s the case, I struggle to see what the big deal is. I spent a lot of time with the Pixel 9 Pro last year (and more recently the Pixel 9a), and performance with the Tensor G4 chip on both phones is great. The UI is as smooth as butter, apps open and run quickly, and the few games I play run without a hitch.
If I’m solely looking at benchmark numbers or closely analyzing frames per second, I’m sure I’d be a lot more disappointed with the G4. But for day-to-day performance with the way I use my phone, not once have I felt that the Tensor G4 is underpowered. Seeing that the Tensor G5 could be almost 50% faster for certain tasks is pretty incredible — regardless of how it compares to Qualcomm’s chip.
Benchmarks — especially for unreleased phones — never tell the whole story.
The other way to look at this benchmark leak, which is perhaps the healthiest way, is that benchmarks — especially for unreleased phones — never tell the whole story.
Benchmark results are one of the easiest things to fake, so wholeheartedly trusting leaked results like this is never a good idea. And even if the benchmarks are real, there’s a very strong possibility that old drivers and/or unoptimized software are leading to these “disappointing” results (which could very well explain the lower-than-expected GPU Antutu scores).
Add all of this together, and it’s hard to see this outrage as anything but complaining just for the sake of it.
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There are other reasons to be excited about the Tensor G5
Robert Triggs / Android Authority
Looking beyond the benchmark debacle, it’s also worth mentioning that performance is just one of the reasons to look forward to the Tensor G5. And, if you ask me, it’s the least important. While the Tensor G5 should be a faster chip than the G4, it should also be more efficient — and that’s what could matter the most.
Although I’ve never had any serious performance issues with Tensor chips, I have had my fair share of complaints about battery life and thermal management, both of which could be resolved with more efficient silicon.
We live in a world where flagship Qualcomm chips (when paired with a large enough battery) can easily last a day and a half or two days per charge — something I’ve never experienced with a Pixel. We also expect competing flagship chipsets to handle basic daily tasks without overheating, something Google’s Tensor chips have always struggled with.
It’s these potential upgrades, rather than faster performance, that have me the most excited for the Tensor G5. I certainly won’t say no to a faster phone, but if the G5 enables the Pixel 10 series to have genuinely great battery life and no thermal issues, that’s what will make the most significant difference — and that’s not something you’ll see in any CPU or GPU benchmark.
Of course, whether the G5 delivers on this potential remains to be seen until we get our hands on the Pixel 10 lineup, but that again reinforces my point here. One benchmark leak can only tell us so much about a phone. It doesn’t reveal anything about real-world performance, battery life, thermals, etc. I can understand being disappointed about “bad” benchmark results, but to be enraged about a leak like this just doesn’t make sense.
The good news is that the Pixel 10 is being announced today, so it won’t be long now until we can do that testing ourselves to see how the Tensor G5 performs in the real world — and we can (hopefully) put this silly benchmark complaining behind us.
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