Liliputing

  • Reviews
  • Deals
  • How To…
  • Mini PCs
  • Shop
  • About
    • About Liliputing
    • Contact us
    • Advertise on Liliputing
    • Support Liliputing
    • Privacy Policy

Closer look at MediaTek’s upcoming 10-core Helio X20 processor

04/21/2015 at 10:00 AM by Brad Linder 8 Comments

The MediaTek Helio X20 is expected to be one of the first 10-core mobile processors when the chip launches later this year.

We first heard about the upcoming processor from Taiwanese chip maker MediaTek about a week ago. Now a few more details are emerging, giving us an idea of what to expect from the many-core chip.

helio x20_01

According to slides shared at Chinese social networking site Weibo, the chip will feature:

  • Two 2.5 GHz ARM Cortex-A72 CPU cores
  • Four 2 GHz ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores
  • Four 1.4 GHz ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores

All of those processor cores are based on ARMv8 64-bit architecture, but the fastest chips are based on ARM’s latest designs which are said to offer up to 3.5 times the performance of an ARM Cortex-A15 processor while using up to 75 percent less power.

The Cortex-A53 cores are still pretty speedy, but they offer less performance and consume less power. Like most ARM-based chips with four or more processors, the Helio X20 will use only as many cores as needed for a certain task. The lower-power cores can handle day-to-day tasks with the higher-performance components kicking into action only when they’re needed. This helps mobile devices balance battery life and performance.

ARM calls its version of this technology big.LITTLE, but MediaTek says it’s upcoming chip uses a tri-cluster arrangement which offers even greater power consumption savings.

We’ll have to wait until the MediaTek Helio X20 (also known as the MTK6797) chip is released in the second half of 2015 to know whether this is all just a marketing gimmick or if ten cores are really better than eight (or four, for that matter). But MediaTek claims the new chip will score over 70,000 in the AntTuTu benchmark, while the company’s Helio X10 chip cores closer to 50,000.


via GizmoChina

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Email

Daily Deals (2-18-2019)

A bunch of PC makers and retailers are running Presidents Day sales today which means that you can save money on some cheap, mid-range, and premium … [Read More...]



Support Liliputing

Liliputing’s primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the “Shop” button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we’ll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you’re using an ad blocker and hate online shopping.

Contribute via PayPal

  • donate monthly
  • donate once only
Select a Donation Option (USD)

Enter Donation Amount (USD)

Subscribe via Patreon

Become a Patron!

8
Leave a Reply

Login with
Facebook Google Twitter WordPress Yahoo! Disqus Reddit Stackoverflow GitHub
avatar
This comment form collects your name, email address, and content to allow us to keep track of comments placed on this website. Please read our privacy policy for more details.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser cookies for the next time I comment.
3 Comment threads
5 Thread replies
0 Followers
 
Most reacted comment
Hottest comment thread
7 Comment authors
realjjjVladaNeoprimalmilkboymenting Recent comment authors
avatar
This comment form collects your name, email address, and content to allow us to keep track of comments placed on this website. Please read our privacy policy for more details.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser cookies for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

  Subscribe  
newest oldest most voted
Notify of
Justin Charles Reback
Guest
Justin Charles Reback
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

That’s pretty excessive..Why not just 2 A72’s at 2.5 and then something like 4 A53’s at 2 with some kind of dynamic clock speeds that scale the A53’s speed based on how light the demands are? Seems ridiculous to have 3 clusters on a single chip. Am I wrong on any of what I said being possible and more feasible? I’m all for squeezing as many cores as possible into a chip because if it were used in a PC or server system it could be very useful, but I think this is ridiculous given the market Mediatek usually sells to.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
Z C
Guest
Z C
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

I agree. Three clusters is just unnecessary: When I’m using a phone or tablet, there’s only 2 use cases: 1) I need maximum performance (gaming) or 2) I need maximum battery life (everything else). I honestly don’t see the need for more granularity than that.

If it was up to me, I’d have 2 to 4 A72’s (each dynamically turned on or off depending on load), and 1 core of whatever is most energy efficient at 500mhz.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
Vlada
Guest
Vlada
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

This is simply not true. Do you use web browser? Do you use navigation? Do you work with pohotos or movies? For all this you need good performance but not the highest possible all the time.

I don’t know how efficient this is. Of course the 10 cores are there also because of marketing. But wait for real world results before you judge so strictly.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
menting
Guest
menting
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

not saying whether it’s a good idea or not to have 2 sets of A53’s at different max speeds, but one reason to do that is if you target different A53 max speeds, you can use different transistors in the design. An A53 that has a max speed of 2G might need for example a LVT (low VT) transistor in order to hit that speed, and even though the 2G can drop down to 1.4G, it still won’t be as efficient as using a HVT (high VT) transistor that originally targeted 1.4G in the design

personally I don’t think that’s an efficient use of die size, but I’m not paid big bucks to decide that.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
milkboy
Guest
milkboy
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

i second that.
latest marketing gimmick from mediatek? we’ll see when it is released

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
realjjj
Guest
realjjj
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

Don’t focus on the number of cores, there are more interesting things than that here.

The latest Geekbench scores from the dual A72 tab SoC from Mediatek http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/2378944?baseline=2375021
The MT8173 is supposed to max at 2.4GHz and almost 1700 in single core is very very nice from a midrange tab SoC. The Galaxy S6 single core perf is about 1500. SD801 some 1000 and A53 at 1.7GHz some 800+.
And that’s a dev board, final perf could be better.
The phone SoC , if real, has slightly higher clocks and would gain in perf further because of the wider (128 bit) memory bus.
And that’s the interesting part here, there is a huge gain in perf.

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
Neoprimal
Guest
Neoprimal
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

10 cores “seem” excessive but I’m no engineer. I will leave judgement for real world performance/cost. If devices which employ this architecture are cheaper or the same price and performance is similar or better than whatever’s on the market currently but also offer sufficiently extended run times then obviously this makes a ton of sense. If not, then this to me would be chalked up to being gimmicky. Logically speaking, I can see how 3 clusters may work out to be better performance-wise as long as the software is smart and quick enough at switching between everything. As it is right now though, the whole 2 cluster 4+4 scenario doesn’t seem to be any better than just using a quad core. If you look at benchmarks, they are both so similar that by the end of it, you’ll likely be using graphics performance or battery longevity as the qualifier of… Read more »

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago
realjjj
Guest
realjjj
You can flag a comment by clicking its flag icon. Website admin will know that you reported it. Admins may or may not choose to remove the comment or block the author. And please don't worry, your report will be anonymous.

Nobody claims better perf with the 3 stages just better power consumption. SD615 is like this except missing the big cores and (it appears) Qualcomm hasn’t done much to optimize the lower clocked cores for low power but a lot more could be done. A quad cluster including cache on 20nm might be about 4.5mm2 die area so not a lot but hard to say if it’s worth it or not, that will depend on how much power they save and how much perf they lose will all the core switching. A53 was aimed at about 1.2GHz and above that power consumption goes up fast. The A53s at 1.4GHz might be almost 3 times lower perf than the A72 at 2.5GHz and that would be a big perf gap.So a mid stage makes some sense for both power and perf. They likely could have went 2+2+2 but then the cache… Read more »

Vote Up0Vote Down  Reply
3 years ago

Follow Liliputing:

Facebook Twitter YouTube tumblr RSS Patreon

Latest News

Lilbits 350: TCL’s folding smartphone plans revealed (maybe)

If Chinese electronics company TCL may be better known in the US for its TVs … [Read More...]

Lilbits 349: The 5G smartphones are coming

Mobile World Congress is a little more than a week away, and we'll likely see … [Read More...]

Windows Subsystem for Linux update will let you access Linux file from Windows

One of the most surprising things about Windows 10 is that you have the option … [Read More...]

Featured articles

GPD MicroPC handheld computer preview

It's been a good couple of years for handheld computer enthusiasts. Companies … [Read More...]

Taihe Gemini portable 1080p touchscreen monitor preview

The Taihe Gemini portable monitor has made quite a splash since going up for … [Read More...]

Zotac Pico PI470 is a pocket-sized PC with Intel Amber Lake

Zotac's latest pocket-sized computer is the company's most powerful to date. … [Read More...]

Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by Skimlinks and Amazon's and eBay's affiliate programs.

Login

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2019 Liliputing · About Liliputing · Contact Us · Privacy Policy · Go to top of page

wpDiscuz
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.