The Pixel 10’s bad GPU benchmark scores might just be outdated drivers

Earlier this month, we highlighted one of the Pixel 10’s biggest and most baffling flaws: its shockingly poor GPU performance. Benchmarks showed the new Tensor G5’s graphics capabilities lagging not just behind current flagships, but even behind two-year-old Android phones. It was a massive disappointment.

Well, a new theory has emerged via a post from Android Police, backed by some solid evidence that offers a glimmer of hope. It turns out the root of the problem might not be the hardware itself, but something much simpler and, thankfully, fixable: an outdated driver.

The problem isn’t the power, it’s the speed

As many frustrated new Pixel 10 owners on Reddit have discovered, the issue seems to stem from the GPU’s clock speed. The new PowerVR GPU from Imagination Technologies is, on paper, a very capable piece of hardware. The problem is that in real-world use and in benchmarks, it appears to be stuck at its low idle frequency of around 396MHz, never ramping up to its full 1GHz potential, even under a heavy load. This is the reason its performance has been so abysmal.

The likely culprit: an outdated driver

So why is this happening? The most likely culprit appears to be the software driving the hardware. The Pixel 10 shipped with a GPU driver (v24.3) that was already out of date at the time of the phone’s release.

Imagination Technologies, the company that makes the PowerVR GPU, rolled out a newer driver (v25.1) back in August. That updated driver specifically added Android 16 compatibility, Vulkan 1.4 support, and other broader improvements. Why the Pixel 10 launched with the older, less-optimized driver is a mystery, but it’s the strongest clue we have as to what’s causing these performance bottlenecks.

A fix could be on the way

If the issue is indeed just driver-related, this is actually great news. It means the problem is fixable with a simple software update, not an unchangeable hardware flaw. Google has a history of rolling out new GPU drivers as part of its Android updates that deliver significant performance improvements.

While Google has yet to officially acknowledge the issue, the likely path for a fix would be to see the updated GPU driver appear in a future Android 16 QPR beta build before being pushed out to the public, possibly as part of the December Feature Drop.

For now, this is still a “wait and see” situation, but this new evidence provides a strong reason to be optimistic. Fingers crossed that a simple software update can unlock the true potential of the Pixel 10’s new GPU and fix what is easily one of its most glaring flaws.