That makes the news that the April update is having a considerable positive impact on the GPU performance of the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G a potential gamechanger for Pixel fans and prospective Pixel owners (via Engadget).
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How significant of an impact are we talking about? Editors from Der Standard and Anandtech tweeted that their Pixel 5 units were seeing 30% to 50% improvements in benchmark tests when compared to previous results. While the April changelog includes “performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps and games” that isn’t an unusual claim with any update and doesn’t typically show this kind of dramatic improvement. I ran our standard battery of performance tests on my Pixel 4a 5G before and after installing the April update as well to see if it was showing similar improvements. I was blown away by the results; with the GFXBench 5.0 Aztek Ruins OpenGL test I saw a 48% improvement on the high-tier and 62% on the normal tier. Results on the Aztek Ruins Vulkan test were similar with a 47% boost on the high-tier and 58% on the normal tier. Finally, I ran the 3DMark Slingshot Extreme Open GL ES 3.1 test and once again showed an average of a 42% improvement. It’s worth noting that this is specifically a GPU improvement. There was no notable change in CPU performance: a series of Geekbench 5 tests before and after showed comparable results. We’ll be conducting some additional testing with real-world applications to see how this has impacted day-to-day usage, but it’s an astounding improvement to the GPU performance on these phones and could move the need for those considering a Pixel 5 as it can often be found for $599 now, which is exactly the $100 off that our reviewer said would be appropriate for the hardware.
