The Google Pixel 10 series is finally here with the all-new Tensor G5 chipset, promising significant upgrades over last year’s G4 chip. This is the biggest upgrade to Tensor chips and promises a significant performance increase, but despite all that, it couldn’t stand strong against the Snapdragon 8 Elite (see the comparison here). The latter is much more powerful than the Tensor G5.
So now, we’re more interested in finding out how the latest Tensor chip fares against the 2023’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Can it beat the Snapdragon’s two-year-old flagship chipset? Let’s see what the benchmarks have to say.
Tensor G5 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Benchmark score
Note: The Tensor G5 benchmark scores are obtained from leaked sources (1, 2). We’ll update them once we test the device. The reference devices used for benchmark testing are Pixel 10 Pro XL (Tensor G5) and Galaxy S24 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 3).
Tensor G5 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 AnTuTu score
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 pulls well ahead of the Tensor G5 in AnTuTu, scoring 1,768,372 compared to the Tensor’s 1,140,286 — a gap of nearly 55% in overall performance.
The Qualcomm chip leads across the board. Its CPU score of 441,650 is about 41% higher than Tensor’s 313,500. The GPU score widens the gap even further, with the Snapdragon chip posting nearly a 66% boost, which should translate into smoother gaming and stronger graphics performance.
The memory (371,609 vs 246,571) and UX (302,008 vs 185,520) also lean in favor of the Snapdragon. So, while the Tensor G5 promises a significant performance boost, it still can’t beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in raw performance.
| Tensor G5 (leaked score) | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu score | 1,140,286 | 1,768,372 |
| CPU | 313,500 | 441,650 |
| GPU | 394,695 | 653,105 |
| Memory | 246,571 | 371,609 |
| UX | 185,520 | 302,008 |
Tensor G5 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Geekbench score
On Geekbench, the results are much closer than on AnTuTu. In fact, the Tensor G5 achieves a higher single-core score than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (2,296 vs. 2,216), but the gap is narrow. The Snapdragon chip outperforms in multi-core performance, achieving a 9.5% higher score (6,791 vs. 6,203).
| Tensor G5 (leaked score) | Snapdragon 8 Elite | |
| Single core | 2,296 | 2,216 |
| Multi core | 6,203 | 6,791 |
In terms of raw performance, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 outperforms Google’s latest Tensor G5 mobile chipset significantly in benchmarks. Let’s now look at the spec sheet and major differences for better clarity about these two chipsets.
Tensor G5 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Spec sheet
| Tensor G5 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Announced | August 2025 | October 2023 |
| Process node | TSMC’s 3nm (N3E) | TSMC’s 4nm |
| CPU | 1x 3.78 GHz — Cortex-X4 5x 3.05 GHz — Cortex-A725 2x 2.25 GHz — Cortex-A520 | 1 x 3.3 GHz — Cortex-X4 3 x 3.15 GHz — Cortex-A720 2 x 2.96 GHz — Cortex-A720 2 x 2.27 GHz — Cortex-A520 |
| GPU | PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU No ray tracing support | Adreno 750 GPU Ray tacing support Snapdragon Elite Gaming features |
| NPU | New Google Edge TPU | Qualcomm Hexagon NPU |
| Memory | LPDDR5X | LPDDR5x, up to 4.8GHz |
| Storage | UFS 4.0 | UFS 4.0 |
| Camera | New ISP Real-time semantic segmentation Up to 8K video recording | Spectra triple ISP (18-bit) Real-time semantic segmentation Up to 8K video recording |
| Connectivity | Samsung Exynos 5400 5G modem Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 6.0 | Snapdragon X75 5G modem Download speed: 10 Gbps (peak) Upload speed: 3.5 Gbps (peak) Wi-Fi 7 (peak speed: 5.8 Gbps) Bluetooth 5.4 |
For the first time, Google chose TSMC to manufacture the Tensor G5, while the previous Tensor chips were manufactured by Samsung. The former is well-reputed for making high-performance and highly efficient smartphone chips.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is also manufactured using TSMC’s manufacturing facility. The difference here is that the Tensor G5 utilizes a more advanced 3nm processing node, compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3’s 4nm, resulting in improved power efficiency.
The two chips also feature different CPU architectures for mid-cores, with the Tensor G5 equipped with five Cortex-A725 cores, while the Snapdragon chip utilizes five Cortex-A720 cores. The remaining cores, however, are the same.
For visual rendering, the Tensor G5 features a PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has an Adreno 750 GPU with higher floating-point operations per second (FLOPS).
Tensor G5 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 3: Conclusion
The Tensor G5 brings many solid upgrades, and for this reason, Google calls it “a game-changer for Pixel”. However, when compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, it’s clear that Google still has some catching up to do. The Snapdragon chip dominates in almost every category on AnTuTu and Geekbench.
Please note that the comparison uses leaked benchmark data for Tensor G5. So, there can still be some differences when we’ve the data from our testing. We’ll update the article accordingly.
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