Google switched to TSMC for the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 chip and replaced Arm’s Mali GPU with Imagination’s PowerVR. But both moves didn’t have the intended consequences, with the Tensor G5’s performance and efficiency trailing its competitors. The GPU performance especially sticks out like a sore thumb, being even slower than the Pixel 9 in many cases. Many users blame outdated GPU drivers for the poor showing. Google has now confirmed that Pixel 10 GPU driver updates are on the way.
The Tensor G5 uses Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR DXT-48-1536 GPU, a fairly powerful graphics chip supporting Vulkan 1.3, tile-based deferred rendering, and 1.5TFLOPS FP32 performance. Yet, the Pixel 10 struggles to run modern games smoothly and scores even lower than the Pixel 9 in GPU benchmarks.
Frustrated Pixel 10 owners on Reddit did some digging and found outdated GPU drivers to be the likely culprit. The phone ships with an outdated driver (v24.3), which does not even support Android 16. Right around the time the Pixel 10 released, Imagination Technologies rolled out a new driver (v25.1), featuring Android 16 and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility.
Given the performance issues, you’d expect Google to include the fix in a monthly Pixel update, but that hasn’t happened yet.
In a statement to Android Authority, though, a Google spokesperson confirmed it intends to update the Pixel 10’s GPU driver.
We are continuing to improve driver quality in our monthly and quarterly system updates. For example, the most recent September and October patch releases included driver improvements. In future releases we are planning further GPU driver updates.
Confusingly, the company says it even rolled out driver updates with the September and October updates. However, they did not bring any noticeable performance uplift or fix any of the existing issues.
Google’s no stranger to updating the Pixel GPU drivers
Google has previously updated GPU drivers on Pixel phones, so it’s not exactly surprising that the company will do so for the Pixel 10. In all previous cases, the updates significantly improved GPU performance as well.
What is surprising is given the Pixel 10’s GPU performance woes, it’s taking the company so long to roll out a newer driver build. The latest Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3.1 still features the older driver.
