Ron Amadeo
Almost six months after the launch of the Pixel 5, Google has revamped the way the GPU works, bringing the phone to the level you would expect from a Snapdragon 765G phone. The April 2021 security update for Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a (5G) came with a note stating that it includes “performance optimizations for certain applications and games with a lot of graphics”. Practical tests reveal that the update appears to dramatically improve the Pixel 5 GPU, reportedly showing performance gains of up to 50 percent in some applications and benchmarks.
We don’t have a Pixel 5 available to test, but Andreas Proschofsky Der Standard reported to the Internet that he is seeing “30-50 percent better” performance in 3DMark after the update. Andrei Frumusanu Anandtech confirmed that “performance was essentially double the published scores [in Anandtech’s review], and online or better than other 765G phones “, adding that” the fact that it took 6 months is sad, however. “Hmm. Yes.
It may seem impossible to add 50% better performance with a mere software update, but Google is just fixing the terrible state of the launch phone. There was simply a lot of room for improvement over other phones. When we looked at the device, we called it “the world’s slowest Snapdragon 765G phone”, noting that other Snapdragon 765G smartphones like the OnePlus Nord could clean the floor with the device in face-to-face GPU benchmarks. It was not a great look for the Pixel 5, which was already experiencing a move to mid-range hardware which meant it would be slower than the Pixel 4. Benchmarks allow us to put exact numbers on the changes, but this is not a benchmarking trick ; the numbers reflected real-world performance when it came to 3D games, which was terrible on Pixel 5.
Google says the April 2021 security update also comes with camera quality improvements for third-party applications, a fix for an issue that could cause a startup crash, and a fix for some missing home screen settings. The update should now be released for Pixel phones – just press the update button.