Google Tensor Benchmarks vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, SD888+ & Exynos 2100 – Another chipset with thermal throttling, but does it matter?

The Google Pixel 6 started shipping this week, being the first phone to use the custom Google Tensor chipset. This is the biggest upgrade for the Pixel series in years, and many people are already claiming that the Pixel 6 Pro is the best Android phone of the year.

The Google Tensor uses some similar specs as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and the Samsung Exynos 2100 and will certainly be a very powerful chipset that will handle the most demanding of tasks, but how good is it compared to the other flagship chipsets of this year?

I will preface these results stating that benchmarks are really not the best indication of real-word performance. Some brands optimise the phones to perform well in benchmarks, and benchmarks such as 3DMark Stress Testing will push the phone beyond what most normal users will ever do in real life. However, as inaccurate as they may be, they do provide some objective numbers which help guide my reviews rather than me trying to explain the performance of one phone from another clumsily.

Specification

	Google Tensor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 888	Samsung Exynos 2100	Mediatek Dimensity 1200
Fabrication Process	5nm	5nm	5nm	6nm
CPU	2x Arm Cortex-X1 @ 2.80GHz 2x Arm Cortex-A76 @ 2.25GHz 4x Arm Cortex-A55 @ 1.80GHz	1x ARM Cortex-X1 @ 2.84 GHz 3x ARM Cortex-A78 @ 2.42 GHz 4x ARM Cortex-A55 @ 1.8 GHz	1x Arm Cortex-X1 @ 2.9GHz 3x Arm Cortex-A78 @ 2.8GHz 4x Arm Cortex A55 @ 2.2GHz	1 x Arm Cortex A78 @ 3.0Ghz 3 x Arm Cortex A78 @ 2.6Ghz 4 x Arm Cortex A55 @ 2Ghz
GPU	Arm Mali G78MP20	Qualcomm Adreno 660	Arm Mali G78MP14	Arm Mali G77 MC9
AI/NPU	Tensor Processing Unit	Hexagon 780 DSP	Triple NPU + DSP	APU 3.0

Google has gone a bit left field with the design decisions for the Tensor. It is the only chipset to run two of the new high powered Arm Cortex-X1 CPU cores but then pairs them up with somewhat outdated Arm Cortex-A76.

The GPU design is also a monster with 20 processing cores 42% more than the Samsung Exynos 2100.

Antutu

Antutu Results	Chipset	Total	CPU	GPU	Mem	UX
Pixel 6	Google Tensor	652933	168583	250207	103022	131121
Red Magic 6s Pro	Snapdragon 888+	870879	224338	327346	146060	173135
Red Magic 6R	Snapdragon 888	826600	209106	320101	131967	165417
Realme GT	Snapdragon 888	797855	204680	309021	120085	164069
OnePlus 9 Pro	Snapdragon 888	782633	194319	306204	130315	151796
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra	Exynoss 2100	638941	177801	269430	108391	83319
OnePlus Nord 2	Dimensity 1200-AI	535652	136004	191919	101376	106354

The Antutu results don’t look overly favourable when compared to the Qualcomm equipped phones. I have included three SD888 phones on the list to show the relatively large difference in performance, with some brands pushing the chipset a bit harder. The gaming-focused Red Magic phones have a significant performance emphasis over battery efficiency.

Geekbench

Geekbench 5	Chipset	Single Core	Multi Core
Honor Magic5 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 2	1481	4932
Honor Magic4 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	1220	3569
Xiaomi Mi 11	Snapdragon 888	1139	3693
OnePlus 9 Pro	Snapdragon 888	1109	3487
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra	Exynos 2100	1079	3381
Google Pixel 6	Google Tensor	1042	2957
Xiaomi	Dimensity 8200-Ultra	1005	3744
OPPO Find X5 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	976	3484
Asus ROG Phone 3 S	Snapdragon 865+	975	3357
Realme GT Neo 3	Dimensity 8100	966	3672
OPPO Find X3 Pro	Snapdragon 888	928	3357
Realme X50 Pro	Snapdragon 865	910	3205
Infinix Note 30 VIP	Dimensity 8050	854	3047
Redmi K30 Ultra	Dimensity 1000+	782	2890
Samsung Galaxy S20	Exynos 990	772	2590

I reused one of my old tables here. With this one, you can see how well the Tensor chipset performs against the Snapdragon 765G which was used on the Pixel 5. A 70% and 55% performance difference between the Pixel 6 and the Realme X50 with the SD765G.

In comparison to the other flagship chipsets, Geekbench results were somewhat predictable. The two Arm Cortex-X1 cores are clocked lower than the single Cortex-X1 on the Qualcomm and Snapdragon, giving them an advantage for the single-core.

Similarly, the inclusion of the A76 cores drops the overall multi-core performance. However, it is still a perfectly respectable result.

3DMark Wildlife – Stress Testing & Thermal Throttling

3DMark	Chipset	Wild Life High	Wild Life Low	Stability	Temperature	Battery
iQOO 12 Retest	Snapdragon 8 Gen 3	18346	12144	66.2%	26° to 42°	87% to 73%
iQOO 12 First Test	Snapdragon 8 Gen 3	18087	7549	41.7%	25° to 39°	96% to 82%
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra	Snapdragon 8 Gen 3	17580	9828	55.9%	24° to 42°	79% to 66%
Honor Magic5 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 2	12726	8567	67.3%	19° to 38°	100% to 92%
Honor Magic4 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	10189	6445	63.3%	24° to 44°	86% to 72%
OPPO Find X5 Pro	Snapdragon 8 Gen 1	9537	6060	63.5%	21° to 44°	33% to 23%
Pixel 8 Pro	Google Tensor G3	8434	5599	66.4%	27° to 44°	83% to 72%
Pixel 7 Pro	Google Tensor G2	6527	4766	73%
Pixel 6	Google Tensor	6908	3487	50.5%
Xiaomi 13T	Dimensity 8200-Ultra	6485	5879	90.7	28° to 42°	83% to 74%
OnePlus 9 Pro	Snapdragon 888	5775	3489	60.3%
OPPO Find X3 Pro	Snapdragon 888	5765	3804	66%
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra	Exynos 2100	5466	6404	62.3%
Xiaomi Mi 11	Snapdragon 888	5550	5045	90.9%
Realme GT	Snapdragon 888	5850	3234	55.3%
Oppo Find X3 Neo	Snapdragon 865	5038	4942	98.1%
Realme GT Neo 3	Dimensity 8100	5446	5399	99.1%	32° to 38°	100% to 94%
Infinix Note 30 VIP	Dimensity 8050	4565	4506	98.7	31° to 46°	100% to 91%
OnePlus Nord 2	Dimensity 1200	4161	2932	70.5%

The 3DMark Wild Life stress test is where things get quite interesting. The Google Tensor has both the best and worst performance of the year. With a high score of 6908, that is almost 20% ahead of the OnePlus 9 Pro with the SD888 and 26% ahead of the Samsung with the Exynos 2100.

However, it has the worst stability score of the year, with the final run being almost half of the high score. Looking at the graph, there is a sharp decline immediately, with the scores starting to stabilise out at around 9 minutes.

For the OnePlus 9 Pro loop graph, you have a fairly stable result for 6 minutes, a slight decline up to 18 minutes, then a steep decline for the last two. So, this may be a bit lower overall, but the sustained performance is better.

The Pixel 6 is obviously amazing for very short bursts, being significantly more powerful than competing brands. However, that sharp decline will likely be something that affects real-world performance in things like gaming. How much you will notice this, is another question. The phone still has plenty of power even when fully throttled.

One thing that is worth noting, the Pixel 6 peaks at 39-degrees and loses about 8% of battery during the test. Other phones run both hotter and have higher battery drain. For example, the OnePlus 9 Pro hit 41-degrees, but the Red Magic 6R (which had almost no throttling) hit 59-degrees and dropped 18%.

PCMark 3.0 Work and Battery Testing

PCMark results vary wildly between brands, even if two different phones use the same chipset. It’s a good indication of both the inaccuracies of benchmarks but you could argue it is a sign of how having a certain chipset doesn’t guarantee a specific level of performance.

An example of this would be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G which achieved 9195 with the Realme GT Master but 12177 with the Honor 50.

For the Pixel, with a score of 10598, the Tensor achieves an admirable result while keeping the CPU clocks quite low when you look at the graph.

AI Benchmark

One of the Pixel 6 series selling points and the Google Tensor is its AI processing ability.

The Ai-Benchmark.com app has in the past had some questionable results and is another good example of the issues faced when using benchmarking apps.

 It significantly favours the FP16 results. In the past this has meant that Huawei/HiSilicon Kirin chipsets have dominated the results, even though the Snapdragon chipset performs better with the INT8 scores.

The Google Tensor has some along and dominated this benchmark. Largely thanks to the absolutely massive FP16 results. However, they also score highly on the IN8 scores, not a high as the SD888 but not far off, and significantly higher than the Kirin 9000.

Overall

The Google Tensor performs about as well as I had expected. It doesn’t offer quite the same level of raw power as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, but I don’t think Google was ever positioning it as the most powerful chipset.

The thermal throttling issues were somewhat predictable, it happened on the SD888 and the Exynos 2100. It seems that the Cortex-X1 and/or Samsung 5nm fabrication process isn’t very good for efficiency. If or how much this affects real-world performance is another question. I suspect not much.

Google massively increased the battery sizes this year, but due to the power of the Tensor chipset, I suspect that the overall performance won’t be quite as good as I would have liked. Early benchmarks for this look OK, but I need more time with it to see how I feel about real-world performance.

Overall, it is an impressive start for Google’s custom chipset, but there is obviously a lot of room for improvement.

Last update on 2024-09-08 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API