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The Google Pixel is fine and all, but still needs a ‘Ryzen moment’ [Video]
![The Google Pixel is fine and all, but still needs a ‘Ryzen moment’ [Video]](https://9to5google.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2025/08/pixel-10-repair-tensor-g5-1.jpg?quality=82&strip=all&w=1600)
At what stage does “fine” feel like it’s doing heavy lifting for problems that might appear in the future? It’s something talked about around the Tensor chip in Pixel phones, but isn’t it about time we saw real-world performance gains? The truth is, we probably need a Ryzen moment for the Tensor chip.
For those who aren’t fully plugged into the history of desktop computing, AMD, or “Team Red,” long languished behind Intel when it came to desktop-tier performance CPUs.
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The Bulldozer architecture used on the FX series of chips was a bit of a disaster. Intel capitalized on this misstep completely, locking the consumer market into a complacent four-core monopoly for nearly a decade because it simply had no pressure to innovate.
With this percolating in the back of my mind, during a recent podcast episode, and spurred on by a Reddit comment I can no longer find over on /r/GooglePixel, there’s a strange sense of déjà vu applicable to Google’s smartphone lineup. There needs to be more than just incremental gains and AI being touted on a $1,000 phones best chip.
Side note: if you are the original poster, please get in touch; you had me thinking about this more broadly and deserve credit for doing so.
While it’s hard not to laud the Pixel line for the brilliant software, extensive and unmatched feature drops, and mostly excellent camera processing, it’s the Google Tensor processor that is almost always the biggest caveat or talking point.
Right now, the Tensor lineup has spent years echoing the systemic flaws of AMD’s Bulldozer era. Stumbling, faltering, and just about hanging in there. I think most of us can agree that Google doesn’t just need an incremental chip upgrade. To truly unlock the potential of the Pixel line, the company needs its very own “Ryzen moment.”
Back to Bulldozer for a second, because I’m not sure everyone is fully aware of chips built on this architecture. FX chips ran hot and throttled under load, were power-hungry, and, in many cases, lost to AMD’s own previous-generation Phenom II chips in terms of performance. They were able to cling to survival more because of very low prices than anything else.
Bulldozer was ditched in favor of the Zen project. Each successive architectural enhancement saw improvements, and in 2017, the first Ryzen 1000 series desktop processors blew everyone out of the water. Multi-threaded performance that rivaled $1,000+ chips from the market leader, Intel. Since then, AMD has been on a tear with Ryzen, beating a complacent Intel in practically all areas.