I tried gaming on the Pixel 10’s new GPU and… it’s fine

While there’s plenty to unpack with the Pixel 10 series and its new Tensor G5 processor, one of the biggest hardware changes this year is the adoption of a brand new GPU architecture.

Google has switched from its long-running use of ARM’s Mali to Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR series. Specifically, the PowerVR DXT-48-1536, but without the ray-tracing capabilities that the series can support.

Early scepticism suggested that the move might not be much of an upgrade and potentially even a downgrade for the Pixel 10 series compared to last year. Thankfully, our initial tests suggest that isn’t the case — performance is up by somewhere in the region of 27%, at least as far as benchmarks go. However, temperatures are slightly higher than last year, resulting in more questionable sustained performance in our stress tests. A mixed bag, then.

Gamers hoping that the Tensor G5 would catch up with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple A18 Pro will no doubt be disappointed. However, few titles target the absolute pinnacle of mobile graphics performance, and plenty of games run pretty smoothly on older Pixels already.

What’s more important with a major architecture shift is that popular titles actually run. A rerun of the Samsung Exynos Diablo debacle certainly wouldn’t do the new Pixels any favours with the already less-than-favorable mobile gaming crowd. With that in mind, I set out to check that my Pixel 10 could actually run the most popular games out there.

In the Android space, Immagination’s PowerVR architecture has mostly been deployed in budget products, so to test if the platform is capable of delivering in a flagship product, I tried to boot up a few of the more popular Android mobile games.

The good news is that PUBG, COD Mobile, Genshin Impact, Honkai Starrail, and Diablo Immortal installed and booted up correctly. I played around in all these titles for a few minutes apiece and didn’t notice any performance or graphical glitches.

I haven’t had time to directly compare the performance of these titles against last year’s flagship yet, but frame rates felt smooth to me on the default graphics settings — well above 30fps once I flipped on these games’ 60fps modes. I probably could have pushed the settings a little bit higher and been fine as well.

Interestingly, even GRID Legends appeared available to download in the Play Store, a title that isn’t available for my Pixel 9 Pro XL. After downloading it, however, I was greeted with the message that the phone doesn’t meet the minimum requirements to play. Still, it’s not like this is the only phone that falls foul of some games with more specific requirements, but it is something that the latest Snapdragon phones seldom have to deal with.

I also tried a little bit of emulation via Dolphin. While the experience was a little more spluttery at times while playing a bit of Mario Kart Wii, even more powerful phones aren’t immune to the odd jank while loading up assets. General performance was again more than smooth enough to enjoy the game, whether using OpenGL or Vulkan backends, and there were no missing textures, weird lighting effects, or bizarre glitches to ruin the experience.

This certainly isn’t to say that every game or emulated title will run flawlessly. I obviously have not had time to test them all, and this may be one of the reasons why Google hasn’t said too much about its new GPU — there could always be an outlier or two. Still, fears that moving to a new graphics architecture will render the Pixel 10 series useless for gamers appear unfounded. It might not be the fastest choice, but you can dabble in some light gaming on the Pixel 10 without issue. If I have one complaint, it’s that the little phone warms up quite quickly.

Google’s Tensor has always been a contentious chip from a performance perspective, and the G5 inside the Pixel 10 series is no exception. It is definitely not in the same benchmarking league as the fastest processors around, which some will find tough to reconcile with the phone’s premium price point, particularly for the Pro models.

If gaming is high on your list of priorities and you must have the best frame rates money can buy, grabbing the very capable and reasonably priced OnePlus 13 or a dedicated gaming beast like the ASUS ROG Phone 9 will undoubtedly suit you better.

That said, the Pixel 10 and 10 Pro models don’t have any trouble booting up any of the games I tested, and they run with nary a hiccup. If you are more of a casual dabbler in the odd game and value Google’s useful AI additions and latest photography smarts, then the Pixel 10 series is still undoubtedly worth a purchase.