Tensor G4 in Pixel 9 isn’t a big performance upgrade, but the modem alone is reason to be excited

Ben Schoon | Jul 31 2024 - 9:15 am PT

Google’s upcoming Tensor G4 chip was never going to be a major upgrade, especially as it’s just a final stop-gap before the arrival of fully custom Tensor chips produced through TSMC. But that doesn’t mean it can’t have a meaningful boost for users, and it seems that will come in the form of improved battery consumption and heat through a better modem within the Pixel 9 series.

We’ve already learned a whole lot about the Tensor G4 chip that’s set to power the whole Pixel 9 series. As gathered from a leak in June, the chip has a new 1+3+4 layout comprised of a single Cortex-X4 core, three Cortex-A720 cores, and four Cortex-A520 cores. Those are all newer cores compared to Tensor G3, which used Cortex-X3 for the main CPU core and older generations of the other two core types. Clock speeds across the board are also going up.

It’s not a major upgrade on paper, but everything is newer and more efficient this time around which should help out with things such as power efficiency, heat generation, and more.

The biggest upgrade, though, sounds like it will be the Exynos 5400 modem.

Earlier this month a hands-on leak we spotted of the Pixel 9 Pro XL confirmed that the device will be running on Samsung’s newer Exynos 5400 modem. That’s up from the Exynos 5300 used alongside Tensor G3 in the Pixel 8. Now, Android Authority cites information that claims Exynos 5400 is “up to 50%” better in terms of power consumption versus the Exynos 5300 used last year.

Heat and power consumption have been long-running issues of Google’s Tensor reboot of the Pixel lineup, and that can largely be attributed to Samsung’s modems, which simply aren’t as efficient as the ones Qualcomm builds into its Snapdragon chips. As such, Pixel phones have long suffered from these issues, even as the Tensor chips as a whole have been improving considerably. Last year’s Tensor G3 was a major step up, but any Pixel 8 owner will tell you that the phone still tends to get a little warmer than it should when in an environment where it’s using cellular data.

Somewhat strangely, though, this same sourcing hints that Pixel 9a, or some other future Pixel with Tensor G4, will revert back to Exynos 5300.

Top comment by TurboFool

Liked by 11 people

Between this and some battery concerns, I'm questioning my intent to shift to the smaller Pro. My plan was ALWAYS to skip the 9 and hope the TSMC dream paid off in the 10, but a smaller Pro was VERY compelling. Still is. But unless it's coming with a big efficiency bump to counter the smaller battery, or some other surprises that really sell it hard, I'm starting to think I should go back to chilling for a year. My only real 8 Pro complaint is the size needed to get the Pro features. And I've done alright despite that for most of a year.

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Exynos 5400 is also set to deliver satellite connectivity to Pixel 9.

The report goes on to detail that Tensor G4 is apparently still using many of the same custom components as Tensor G3 did, from Titan M2 down to the TPU, things supposedly aren’t changing all that much, at least according to this information. The packaging process, which has an impact on thermals, also supposedly isn’t changing from Samsung’s FOPLP process. It was reported at one point that Tensor G4 would use a newer Samsung process, but it sounds like that might not be the case after all.

Tensor G4 certainly doesn’t seem like a huge upgrade, but it was never going to be in the first place. But the modem improvements alone seem like a solid step forward for the end-user experience, and the best of a bad situation. As always, though, we’ll need to wait and see how things actually pan out when hardware lands.