Google's best Pixel phones have often struggled to match the best rival phones in terms of raw power, and it looks like the Pixel 9 line will be no exception. Worryingly, though, the performance these new phones offer could also plummet under pressure.
At least, that's the opinion of user X @callmeshazzam (via NotebookCheck), who put the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL through a CPU throttling test and found that after about four minutes, the phone's performance had dropped by almost 60%.
After that, his performance improved again, but only to about 65% of his maximum for the rest of the test.
Pixel 9 Pro XL… Better luck next year pic.twitter.com/cgFzM86oieAugust 17, 2024
And while this is just one test of the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, the rest of the lineup, including the Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro Fold, all use the same chipset, so it's likely those devices will struggle under pressure, too.
Different use cases and a different approach
Of course, in everyday use, it's highly unlikely that you'll push the Pixel 9 Pro XL and others as hard as you did in this test, so the real-world performance you'll get from Google's phones will likely be better. Still, it's not ideal that a chipset that's not up there with the best in power, even at its highest performance, can still see such significant drops.
But these phones are primarily designed with AI in mind, and rather than a top-tier chipset, they have massive amounts of RAM to help with that, with 16GB on the top models. So as AI phones, they can still get the job done, but if you want to play high-end games, you might want to consider a more powerful Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or iPhone 15 Pro.
Still, before making any decisions, we suggest you wait for us to publish our full reviews of the Google Pixel 9 line, because benchmarks never tell the full story.
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