Kuba Wojciechowski presented details on Google Tensor G2, the technology that will power the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. Google will launch the Tensor G2 and Pixel Watch on October 6. Wojciechowski estimates that the Tensor G2 will give a slight performance boost over last year’s Google Tensor. Leaked Geekbench screenshots show this.
In Geekbench’s multi-core benchmark, the Pixel 7 Pro beats its predecessor by 7%. The Pixel 3’s single-core score of 1068 is just 10 points below the Pixel 6 Pro’s. The Tensor G2 uses the same overclocked cores as its predecessor. Tensor G2 contains two ARM Cortex-X1 cores, two Cortex-A76 cores, and four Cortex-A55 cores.
One thing that has changed is the frequency. The A76 cluster has been bumped by 100 MHz, to 2.35 GHz, and the X1 cluster now runs 50 MHz faster than it did before, at 2.85 GHz. pic.twitter.com/xf3Apv4q1T
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) September 16, 2022
This is pre-release hardware that could be tuned, but as Wojciechowski points out, sticking with tried-and-true architecture with a minor tweak could boost battery life and offer the Pixel 7 Pro the greatest phone battery life.
“The current trend in Arm cores is improving the performance at the cost of worse efficiency and high power use,” he tweeted. “By keeping the older cores Google avoids getting those characteristics.”
Thanks to the improved 4LPE process, the chip gets more thermal headroom and efficiency to run at higher frequencies. The first gen Tensor rarely ran tasks on the Cortex-X1 cores because of how much power they used, now it might be considerably better.
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) September 16, 2022
That might be significant, considering Pixel 6 battery life was dismal in our tests, at approximately eight hours for both the ordinary and Pro models. Two hours behind the Samsung Galaxy S21 and 2.5 hours behind the iPhone 13. Any help is appreciated.
While Geekbench’s CPU results are just slightly better, GPU performance should be much better. Google upgraded from the Mali-G78 to the Mali-G710, which, if Arm’s forecasts are true, should boost games by 20%, boost efficiency by the same amount, and boost machine learning by 35%.
“Google runs a huge part of their Google Camera pipeline on the GPU on their Tensor devices,” Wojciechowski writes. “It will certainly improve that considerably, as well as make the new Pixels way better at gaming.”
The GPU, on the other hand, got a big upgrade. Google switched from the Mali-G78 to Mali-G710. Arm promises 20% performance improvement with 20% power reduction, and a huge 35% ML speedup (not everything can run on the TPU). pic.twitter.com/flrJ4hsw3J
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) September 16, 2022
Wojciechowski warns that Geekbench listings might be spoofed, but believes this one is real due to details only a developer would detect.
The exact kernel build used on the device has never been seen before. Not on other devices, not on Google’s developer sites. This makes sense for a semi-custom build they made specifically for the new Pixel 7.
— Kuba Wojciechowski⚡ (@Za_Raczke) September 16, 2022
We’ll see. On October 6, Google will announce its new flagship phones and Pixel Watch. Google could have a winner and one of the greatest Android phones if it can enhance performance while keeping cost competitive.
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