Google’s Tensor G5 has a lot of pressure on its shoulders as the first chip to be produced by TSMC, the same company that produces Apple's A series chips. However, a leaked series of images might have some bad news for expectant Google fans.
The images were shared on Reddit by user HustlersPassion, and show what appears to be a Pixel 9 Pro XL and what is claimed to be a Google Pixel 10 Pro XL with the benchmark scores on the screen. According to the poster, who claims to be a retail store employee, the Pixel 10 Pro XL was a demo unit that was shortly reset after the image was taken.
The Pixel 10 Pro XL in the image certainly does an improvement over the prior model, with both a higher Single and multi-core score. However, as is pointed out by many users in the thread, it is still noticeably behind the competition in both scores.
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Single-core | Multi-core |
Pixel 10 Pro XL (in image | 2,296 | 6,203 |
Pixel 9 Pro XL (in image) | 1,889 | 4,247 |
iPhone 16 Pro Max (A18 Pro) | 3,386 | 8,306 |
Galaxy S25 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite) | 3,031 | 9,829 |
One user mentioned that the Pixel 10 Pro XL also appeared to fall behind the Galaxy S24 Ultra. When we reviewed the Galaxy, we saw a score of 2,300 in the single-core and 7,249 in the multi-core score. If the image is accurate, then the latest Pixel phone appears to only just match last year's Galaxy in terms of single-core performance, while falling behind in multi-core.
Meanwhile, the Antutu scores shown have the Pixel 10 Pro XL fall behind the Pixel 9 Pro XL. However, as is pointed out by Android Authority, these lower GPU scores could be down to several different factors, including Antutu not being optimized for the GPU, older drivers or a combination of reasons.
Are bad benchmarks indicative of a bad phone?
At a glance, these scores give the impression that the Pixel 10 Pro XL, and by extension the Pixel 10 series as a whole, will offer the worst overall experience compared to the other mainline phones. However, as was pointed out by several users, benchmark scores aren’t always the best metric to rate a phone as a whole
Most phones, including mid-range devices, are capable of handling everyday tasks just fine. As such, the average user won't notice all that much difference between an iPhone and a Pixel most of the time. Instead, many users will usually only notice a difference when performing more intensive tasks like gaming or rendering high-quality video clips.
It is also worth noting that we can’t ascertain the conditions for the tests here, nor can we say for certain if the phone in the image is indeed the Google Pixel 10 XL. As such, we'd recommend holding any judgment until we’re able to test the phones ourselves.
On that note, the Made By Google event is scheduled for August 20 and if you want to keep up to date, we have a live blog that we will keep updated with all the releases, news and rumors as they happen.
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