Google Pixel 9 Could Be Slower than the Pixel 8, Tensor G4 Struggles in Early Leaked Benchmarks

Google’s upcoming mobile devices for this year may not see a considerable performance bump, as indicated by previous leaks. The successor to Tensor G3 will most likely sport a minor hardware upgrade with minimal performance leaps. Following these rumors, Geekbench scores for the (alleged) Tensor G4 chips have made their way online, but they’re strange.

Google’s Next SoC Performs Worse than the Three-Year-Old 8 Gen 1, At least According to Leaked Numbers

On Geekbench 5, a Google device, codenamed Tokay, was spotted by Quadrans Muralis on X with discouraging performance numbers. The SoC scored 1082 on Single-Core, with 3121 points on Multi-Core. Now, it is important not to confuse these numbers with Geekbench 6 scores that are more commonly referenced, but even when recalling the correct comparison figures, this chipset falls way behind.

For one, it performs worse than last year’s Tensor G3, which already lagged behind the competition. The G4 was expected to be fabricated on Samsung Foundry’s 4LPP+ process node, the same one used for producing the Exynos 2400, which was somewhat of a successful launch. However, these numbers, even for early engineering samples, are really underwhelming.

On the hardware side, this SoC, the alleged Tensor G4, comes in an eight-core configuration, reducing a core from its predecessor. It uses a Cortex-X4 clocked in at 3.1GHz, followed by a 3x mid-core cluster, sporting the Cortex-A7xx series, clocked at 2.6GHz, and four efficiency A5xx cores at 1.95GHz. The GPU is stated to be the ARM Mali G715.

Looking at this leak from the broader perspective of things, it has been an upsetting past couple of years for Google in terms of the Pixel lineup lagging behind the competition, mainly due to performance constraints. Now, the numbers we are seeing for the Tensor G4, although with many discrepancies, are behind the three-year-old Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in benchmark scores.

Google may not look to adopt Snapdragon SoCs again, but then, with the promised performance leap in the Tensor G5, it’ll have to be a game-changer for Google to justify a lackluster launch this year for the Pixel 9 and Fold 2 lineup.

This is all we know for now, but rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.

via: Geekbench