The latest software update for the Google Pixel line has recently started to be distributed to users. The update includes a number of connectivity, camera and stability improvements for the entire line, along with performance optimizations for the Google Pixel 5 and the Pixel 4a 5G. These optimizations have significantly improved the gaming performance of Google’s latest flagship, according to recent reports.
When Google released the first stable version of Android 11 for its Pixel devices, some users noticed that the graphics benchmark numbers decreased significantly after the update. According HotHardware’s tests, the Pixel 4 XL and the Pixel 4a had a big impact on graphics performance. As the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G were released with Android 11 pre-installed, we had no way of checking whether the phones also suffered a similar problem. Although, Anandtech noted that the Pixel 5 performed much less than similar devices with the Snapdragon 765G chip. This led many to believe that the Android 11 update was to blame.
Source: Google
In the April 2021 update, the changelog mentions some “Performance optimizations for certain applications and games with a lot of graphics”. Andreas Proschofsky’s Der Standard tested the performance of the Pixel 5 GPU after the upgrade using 3DMark and found that the results are now 30-50% better than before. According to recent tweets, its Pixel 5 scored around 2278/2260 for the OpenGL / Vulkan tests on 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme before the April update. After installing the update, the phone scored 3286/3083 in the same test, which is a substantial improvement. Andrei de Anandtech have also confirmed that the update has “Essentially folded” the performance of your Pixel 5. We assume that the Pixel 4a 5G will have similar gains, since it is also mentioned in the official changelog.
At the moment, we do not know the exact cause of the GPU performance regression. We are not sure if there is a problem with the Android 11 update that is specifically causing this problem or if Google went wrong somewhere. We’ll let you know as soon as we find out.