The Google Pixel XL Review: Life After Nexus
by Matt Humrick & Brandon Chester on November 8, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Snapdragon 821
- Pixel
GPU Performance
Section by Brandon Chester
The Pixel XL's Snapdragon 821 SoC uses the same Adreno 530 GPU that is used in Snapdragon 820. In the case of MSM8996 Pro AB, the max GPU frequency is set at 624MHz, which is also the same as Snapdragon 820. This means that at least on paper, one can expect the same GPU performance from the Pixel XL as existing Snapdragon 820 devices. Of course, there are always improvements to drivers and to the SoCs themselves as the manufacturing process matures, so there's always room for improvements in peak and sustained performance, but there won't be any major gains like what one would see from a completely new GPU or a bump in peak clock speed on the same part.
The Pixel XL performs similarly to existing Snapdragon 820 devices in 3DMark Sling Shot. All the devices from the past twelve months generally achieve the same overall score in this test, although when you look at the separate graphics and physics scores you'll see that some devices do better in each category than others. There's not much else to say here, as the Pixel XL isn't breaking any new ground, but it's also not behind the other Android flagship competition either.
As expected, the performance of the Pixel XL in GFXBench's Manhattan test is in line with existing Snapdragon 820 devices. This year devices have really standardized on a resolution of 2560x1440 and Snapdragon 820, so the Pixel XL's performance in both tests is essentially identical to other phones such as the HTC 10 and the Galaxy S7. It's hard to overlook the fact that the Pixel XL's performance is competitive with smartphones that launched in the first quarter of the year, while the most recent smartphones like the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are over 30% faster in this test despite being the same price.
In Car Chase the situation is essentially the same as Manhattan, with the Pixel XL performing similarly to existing Snapdragon 820 devices. In both cases the performance is actually a bit better, but not significantly so. The OnePlus 3 pulls ahead of the Pixel XL in the on screen test, which makes sense given that it's a 1080p device sitting among 1440p devices. Car Chase isn't available on iOS so there's no way to compare to Apple's A10, but among Android devices the Pixel XL does provide the best GPU performance available right now.
The Pixel XL's GPU performance is in line with the current flagship Android phones. Of course, it's already November, so it won't be too long before we see the next generation of phones arrive. Launching this late into the year means that performance isn't going to be significantly better than the initial wave of Snapdragon 820 devices that have been available since February or March, which does put the Pixel in a bit of an awkward position as far as price is concerned. You can grab a OnePlus 3 for $399 and it will perform equally as well in GPU-bound applications as the Pixel, or you can spend the same amount as the Pixel on an iPhone and GPU performance is significantly better. Whether or not this matters really depends on the customer, but it's something to consider when considering the balance of performance and features relative to the cost of a device.
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Hubert Satheesh - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
Hope you take this comment to Google so that they wake up and see the reality. I wonder howlong can play as being 2nd fiddle to apple churning out craps and expect common man to pay a premium price tag! A premium phone should deliver premium experience in all aspects not only in price.Impulses - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
It'll be interesting to see whether they ever address screen calibration via updates, if someone can afford the dev resources to do it post launch it's definitely Google.fotowca - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
Great review. Not sure if you retest after updates and such but I thought I would mention that I just received an update yesterday to Build Number NDE63V, Security patch level November 5, 2016 for my 32gb Pixel XL (Bell in Canada). It said it included performance enhancements so I went ahead and ran the update, and then ran some of the benchmarks that you guys did. I did see some improvements in 3d mark, but the big change for me was in AndroBench. I got the following:SR - 263.1
SW - 76.37
RR - 97.42
RW - 14.43
Impulses - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
Hmm, interesting! Not something I'd expect to see heavy gains via update... Was AndroBench itself also updated in the interim? Just wondering whether they could still be tweaking it for 7.0.Impulses - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
Wow 97MB/s random read? That seems almost inexplicable, from dead last to an order of magnitude faster than anything... I'm curious why the larger model would ever be slower, should be backwards.Matt Humrick - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
We do not use the default settings in AndroBench because they are unrealistic. That's probably why you are seeing higher values.fotowca - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
Do you list what settings you use somewhere? I would be interested in testing with the same settings so I have a baseline to compare to.jmelan - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
seems everyone makes the same mistake when reviewing cameras. what exactly is the positive control here, the iphone???can we please get a camera comparison against a known quantity such as canon 5d mark iii/iv??? then we can see what cameras are undersaturating colors in low light, see if hdr+ is fixing overexposure correctly or not, etc
Impulses - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
They'd all look like crap against even the Mk III, specially in the more stressful tests (low light etc)... As much as people like to pretend otherwise, there's still a gulf between phones and high end cameras (even against tiny mirrorless and 1" sensor models).Judging exposure isn't hard otherwise... And JPEG processing is highly contested even amongst $2,000+ FF cameras. Invariably someone will complain Canon colors or Sony colors or w/e aren't their thing.
UtilityMax - Thursday, November 10, 2016 - link
I consider almost every smartphone priced above 400USD borderline a scam. I don't buy the argument that you absolutely need to start your pricing at 650bucks if you want to compete with iPhone or Samsung. If the Pixel was a new Nexus 5Y, it probably would have been priced under 500USD for the 32GB model.The time is ripe to pop the overpriced smartphone bubble. Oneplus 3 with quite similar specs is selling for 400USD online, and you can pick up a Huawei Honor 8 at Best Buy for 350USD.