Google Pixel 6 Pro's Tensor delivers conflicting performance in Genshin Impact test

Earlier this week, the Google Pixel 6 series made the trip over to 3DMark and delivered a stunning performance, showing superiority over the Exynos 2100 and Snapdragon 888. Of course, synthetic benchmarks don't tell the whole story. The Pixel 6 Pro has now been tested on Genshin Impact, which should provide truly real-world performance indicators of the Google SoC.

As tested, the Pixel 6 Pro delivers a rather conflicting performance, with a large variance depending on cooling conditions. The Pixel 6 Pro, when tested without a fan attached, dropped as low as 30 fps on Genshin Impact within two minutes. Average FPS in this test condition was recorded at about 32 FPS, which is supposedly similar to a Snapdragon 778G. The Snapdragon 778G is a sub-premium chipset that gets dominated by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 and recent Snapdragon 800-series chipsets in gaming, so Tensor's performance here is rather underwhelming.

Thermals of the Pixel 6 Pro stood at about 43.5°C. Going through the tester's previous tests revealed that the Samsung S21 Ultra with both the Snapdragon 888 and Exynos 2100 were recorded at about 48°C. This shows that the Pixel 6 Pro handles heat dissipation pretty well.

With a fan on, though, the Pixel 6 Pro shines. The new flagship averages about 42 fps, which would be similar to the Snapdragon 888 and better than the Exynos 2100. In fact, without the fan on, the Pixel 6 Pro performs similar to the Exynos 2100, which should come as no surprise considering the similarities between Tensor and the Exynos chipset.

The takeaway from this is inconclusive, as we'll need to put the Pixel 6 Pro through our in-house tests. As it stands, though, the Pixel 6 Pro seems to deliver real-world gaming performance a tad better than the Exynos 2100, but weaker than the Snapdragon 888. It's not much but it's honest work.

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