The Google Pixel 4 XL Review: Stuck In The Past In 2019
by Andrei Frumusanu on November 8, 2019 11:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Pixel 4
- Pixel 4 XL
GPU Performance
3D and GPU performance of the Pixel 4, much like all other devices this year with the same Snapdragon 855 chipset, will only be able to differentiate itself from the pack if it has any kind of special heat dissipation or extremely lax thermal throttling designs. We’re not expecting any big surprises here, and do hope the Pixel 4 XL is able to fare competitively.
Starting off with the 3DMark Physics test, which is actually a CPU benchmark within a temperature constrained test scenario, we see the Pixel 4 XL fall in line with the middle of the pack of Snapdragon 855 devices in terms of the sustained performance scores. It’s interesting to see the peak performance standing out and being ahead by a measurable margin against other S855 devices. I’m not too sure why this would be other than maybe Google having extra optimisations in the scheduling of the workload, or maybe even DVFS behaviour of the CPUs, as the actual workload performance shouldn’t change based on any other external factors such as drivers or software.
In the graphics workload, things are GPU bound and that’s the main limiting factor for the performance scores. Here the Pixel 4 XL again falls around the middle of the pack amongst other S855 devices.
This ranking is continued on over all the GFXBench tests as the Pixel 4 XL does adequately but still remains below medium amongst our Snapdragon 855 devices. A peculiarity we’re seeing in the benchmarks is that the peak performance of the Pixel 4 XL is a few percentages lower than that on other S855 phones. Again, I have no proper explanation for this other that it may be some regression in Qualcomm’s GPU drivers, or that maybe Google is being more relaxed on other DVFS behaviour such as on the memory controllers.
Again, whilst this performance isn’t outright bad, we have to keep in mind the pricing of the phone and its very late release date in the year. The contrast to Apple’s iPhone 11s here in the charts is pretty absurd, as it’s able to showcase scores essentially twice as fast as what the Pixel 4 XL can achieve.
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LiverpoolFC5903 - Wednesday, November 13, 2019 - link
Please do not regurgitate unfounded "views" as a fact. The 'new' Nokia has a significant number of people from the 'old' Nokia and is 100% Finnish. This allegation of being a chinese shell is laughable. If you are referring to Nokia phones being manufactured in China, ahem, even Iphones are manufactured in China. As are hundreds of other brands...Spunjji - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
Pretty sure their bigger problem was being tied to a Microsoft OS.milkywayer - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
The battery is so terrible that I have the 90hz feature and the hand gesture thingy turned off on my 4XL. Frankly some Google execs need to be in jail for bundling such a terrible battery with a $1000 phone. It should be a crime in 2019 for what they offer for the price tag. Since Ive left Apple, they probably caught the lazy fewks at Google off guard. What a year! APPLE bundling a bigger battery and improved battery life than any one else.s.yu - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
*Gasp*A LIVE user!
milkywayer - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
Not sure what you're attempting but if you're gonna post a comment, stick to the topic. There's already enough meaningless spam to go around in the internet.s.yu - Saturday, November 9, 2019 - link
What I mean is somebody reading Anandtech actually buys this crap. The specs and pricing alone should be ample deterrent.milkywayer - Saturday, November 9, 2019 - link
I was going to cancel my ore order. I got mine for $300 off by chance so I took it. I think it's every bit worth the $650ish incl tax i paid for the XL. Googles problem is they are pricing these as iPhones but have cut so many features. I'm sure with the ass kicking they've received now for the pixel 4 at least next year the pixel will have a bigger battery. :Ds.yu - Sunday, November 10, 2019 - link
If $650 inc. tax also covers warranty then...I suppose it's still up for consideration, just not for many here who don't want to put too much personal data on clouds because of the puny storage.Spunjji - Monday, November 11, 2019 - link
At that price it's a reasonable phone. Marginally worse hardware than the competition, better software support.Shame they actually don't sell it for that, otherwise I'd consider buying one!
chrnochime - Tuesday, November 12, 2019 - link
They will just mess up something else next year. They just can't compete at this price level with the seemingly half-baked products they release.