Google Tensor G3 reportedly brings massive upgrades, UFS 4.0 storage, more to Pixel 8

Ben Schoon | Jun 3 2023 - 8:31 am PT

While we still have two more Tensor G2-based devices coming this month, Google’s next upgrade to Tensor G3 in the Pixel 8 series will apparently bring some drastic upgrades to the chip’s specs.

According to tipster Kamila Wojciechowska through Android Authority, Tensor G3 is going to be a considerable upgrade with more modern cores, support for the latest storage standard, a new GPU, and more.

Starting with the cores, the Google Tensor G3 will apparently change the core layout yet again, this time with a 1+4+4 layout. This is altered from Tensor and Tensor G2, which both had 2+2+4 layouts.

The single big core will apparently be Cortex-X3, which would be clocked at 3.0GHz. Behind that would be the far more modern Cortex-A715, with four of those mid-cores clocked at 2.45GHz. That’s a huge step forward from the Cortex-A78 that was in place on the Tensor G2. For the “little” cores, there would be four Cortex-A510 cores at 2.15GHz, again being much more modern compared to the Cortex-A55 in both past Tensor generations.

All of this was announced in 2022, so technically, Tensor G3 will still be a bit behind but far closer than ever.

These upgrades alone should provide a solid boost to the CPU’s performance as a whole as well as to its efficiency. This also brings support for ARMv9, which allows for security upgrades. The Pixel 8, according to Wojciechowska, will use this upgrade to implement Memory Tagging Extensions (MTE) from Arm to help prevent memory-based attacks. This would also entirely remove 32-bit support, which Google had already stepped away from on Pixel 7.

Another major point of upgrade is with storage, with this new chip allowing Pixel 8 to support the faster and more efficient UFS 4.0 storage used in devices such as Galaxy S23 Ultra and OnePlus 11.

The GPU is also getting a considerable upgrade, with Tensor G3 reportedly picking up Arm’s new Immortalis GPU, specifically the Mali-G715. That’s not the latest generation, but the 10-core GPU will provide a considerable upgrade, including support for ray tracing.

Tensor G3 will further upgrade video decoding/encoding with the “BigWave” block. It retains AV1 decoding from Tensor G2 but also adds AV1 encoding for up to 4k30. For encoding, the Pixel 8’s chip would support up to 8k30, but it’s unclear if Google would actually ship the feature. An upgrade TPU is also coming under the code name “Rio,” which will bring a faster clock speed at 1.1GHz. There aren’t any specifics, but it’s said to be a “considerable” upgrade. A new digital signal processor, “callisto,” brings a 4-core, 512KB/core configuration at 1065MHz, which is said to offload more image processing.

As previously reported, Pixel 8’s Tensor G3 chip also won’t bring any changes to the modem, which probably isn’t a big deal considering the major upgrade that came with the Exynos 5300 modem in Tensor G2. In a previous test, we found the Pixel’s modem performance comparable to Qualcomm.

Google Tensor G3 is also expected to be a 4nm chip made on Samsung’s process. The Pixel 8 series is expected to arrive in October 2023.