Pixel 8 Tipped to Run Slower Than Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 Phones: Here’s Why

Pixel 8 series is expected to be unveiled by Google later this year, and the specifications of the handset have recently been tipped online. The successor to the Pixel 7 series of smartphones is expected to be powered by a next-generation chipset from Google, the Tensor G3. While the company hasn’t yet announced the specifications of the processor that will power the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, a recent leak suggested that it will feature 9 Arm cores and 10 GPU cores. Meanwhile, a benchmark of a device equipped with the Tensor G3 recently surfaced online giving us a glimpse at its performance.

Tipster Revegnus (Twitter: @Tech_Reve) recently posted a screenshot of a Geekbench listing for a device titled “Google Factory build on Ripcurrent”. The listing isn’t recent — it was posted on April 11 on the benchmarking website. The listing reveals that the handset has a single-core score of 1,186 and a multi-core score of 3,809 with the Geekbench 5.5.1 test. The specifications of the processor also match a recent leak of the specifications of the purported Tensor G3, comprised of 9 cores in a 1+4+4 setup.

The Geekbench listing, however, reveals that the Tensor G3 chip might not bring substantial performance improvements over the Tensor G2 SoC. In fact, the upcoming Nothing Phone 2 recently scored 1,253 and 3,833 points on Geekbench. This suggests that Google’s next flagship smartphones will be powered by a chip that is slower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipsets.  

In fact, the Tensor G3’s purported benchmark scores suggest it is only slightly faster than the recently launched mid-range Poco F5 smartphone that has scores of 1,121 and 3,656 in the single-core and multi-core tests on Geekbench.

However, it is worth noting that Pixel smartphones powered by Tensor chipsets have never offered performance within the realm of similarly priced flagship Android handsets. Instead, these Tensor chips are designed to offer powerful AI features, performing many of the machine learning tasks on the device, which means they work without access to the Internet.

According to a recent leak, the Tensor G3 on the Pixel 8 series of smartphones will be equipped with nine CPU cores with a 1+4+4 layout. The chipset will comprise one 3.00GHz Cortex-X3 core, four 2.45GHz Cortex-A715 cores, and four 2.15GHz Cortex-A510 cores. However, with the recently leaked scores, it is currently unclear how much of a performance boost the new chipset will bring over last year’s Tensor G2 SoC that powers the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.