The ship is leaking at Google.
Earlier this week, a source revealed documents to Android Authority that next year's Tensor G5 and 2026's Tensor G6 would be dropping a nanometer and be the first completely designed internally by Google. The new TSMC-built 3nm chips should be both faster and more efficient than the 4nm Samsung-manufactured ones in the Pixel 9 series. This finally helps Google's chip catch up a little to the Apple A18 processor and Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Today, Notebookcheck reported that they received internal performance forecasts from a source that purports to show how Google expects the Pixel 10 and Pixel 11 to perform compared to Apple's A-series, Qualcomm's Snapdragon and MediaTek's Dimensity SoCs going forward.
The comparison starts in 2021 and through 2026. In Google's extrapolation, while improving, their chips routinely lag behind the flagship chips of their competitors. It appears that Google believes the Tensor chip won't be able to perform at the same levels that chips like Apple's current A18 or next year's A19 will produce, based on Geekbench scores.
To be fair to Google, these prognostications are probably based on prototypes for chips that aren't ready for the mainstream yet.
That said, the forecasted performances do make sense. The Tensor G5 is supposed by the same Arm Cortex-X4 that is runs the Tensor G4.
Apparently, the Tensor G6, which will feature in the Pixel 11, gets rid of efficiency cores in favor of a new combination of an ARM Cortex-X930 super core with six Cortex-A730 performance cores, which should provide a significant boost in performance.
For fans of Google's Pixel series, it looks like the next two iterations could be significantly more impressive and should be more competitive with Samsung and Apple's mainline phones, even if they're not as powerful.
More from Tom's Guide
