This year’s 64bit Mediatek processors may have gained them a larger market share, but the next generation of SoC could see them dominate the processor market.
Mediatek’s stellar year has been aided by the release of their 64bit processors and the performance advantage they offer over similar spec Qualcomm chips. Compared to previous years when fans wished brands would opt for a Snapdragon SoC, this year fans are opting for MT6752 processors over SD615, and in the near future higher end Qualcomm chips could also be under threat.
Today, images from a Mediatek sideshow tell us details of the Mediatek MT6797, the worlds first 10 core, tri-cluster processor.
The idea behind 10 core is basically an evolution of big.LITTLE which we see in some chips today, but instead of just the large and small the tri-cluster set up allows for TINY.MEDIUM.HUGE. With each step comes a boost in performance, the lower the step the better that battery performance.
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So far we have only seen details of one processor using the new architecture, the MT6797. This chipset will use a Tiny core running on 4 x A53 cores running at 1.4ghz to offer the best power effciency. Opening more tasking applications will bump the system up to its Medium setting where 4 x A53 cores running at 2.0Ghz will take over. For more extreme gaming and processor heavy tasks the Big stage of the chip will kick in running on 2 x A72 cores at 2.5Ghz.
According to the slides the MT6797, aka the Helios 20 will be capable of Antutu benchmarks of over 70,000 points!
Other details of the SoC are still unknown, but the chipset will likely retain LTE support, as well as support for higher resolution displays and next generation camera sensors.
What do you make of this processor evolution? Is this what we have been waiting for or is it all a little overkill?
Mediatek has come such a long way! But I wonder about the different A53 cores. Can’t they just make them dynamically tuned? Like, they start with lower frequencies @ 1.4Ghz and when needed they boost to 2Ghz? The other two cores, the A72 are totally different designs so they can stay but I wonder if the different clocked A53’s are really needed. It would surely mean a hell of a less surface on the chip = smaller chip = less power consumption = less cost + longer life on the battery. Right? (probably not that easy ;))
Absolutely right.
In fact, I’d have wished them to put in two extra A72s instead, for being symmetric with the quad A53 workload, but that would bump the cost up as well.
Yeah but if this is going to be there hi-end flagship processor. Would it really cost so much more to dump the mid-range A53’s 2Ghz processors and make it:
4x A53 low power consumption 1.4Ghz
4x A72 hi-end 2.5Ghz
As the user Realjjj says below here; it probably sounds better for marketing. And besides that; there are probably a dozen other technical aspects we don’t know anything about 😉
I’m with you… but you’d lose the “marketing magic” 😛
I’m with you… but you’d lose the “marketing magic” 😛
It’s all about marketing.
The fact they used Antutu to promote it should make us think.
Those A53 over clocked at 2GHz are just for the show.
They are not meant to reach those frequencies, and definitely can’t sustain heavy load for long period without throttling. They are perfect to run benchmarks though.
there are/will be other solutions, I believe that kind of configuration will be used as well when they will announce a “smaller and less energy eater” SoC.
For a smartphone it would be desirable an hexacore instead:
A 2*A72 at 2.0Ghz+ 2*A53 at 1.7Ghz+ 2*A53 at 1.2Ghz
Lower price, balanced performance and greater battery life.
That chip belongs to the tablet market. Period.
It’s not the same thing. This is about optimization for power/performance. This is a static optimization and it’s done by modifying the HW itself. Deepening on what HW implementation you choose you can have an A53 core that cand go up to 2 GHz but use a bit more power or one that can go up to 1.4 GHz but use very little power.
There’s also dynamic scaling of cores but that’s not as effective as doing a HW modification to create a low power core.
Yes, I though it would be something like that. Seems like a waste of surface but it’s likely to be the most efficient this way.
Also we must keep in mind the marketing reasons ( 10 cores sounds really good and better than 4 or 8 ) and the fact that given well optimized app a SOC could actually use these cores together.
Imagine a game using 2 threads running on the poweful A72 cores… it could also run 2 secondary threads on the 2GHz A53 while the some system background threads could share the 1.4 GHz A53 cores.
We live in a world where parallel is the name of the game.
Absolutely, more cores on lower frequencies are better but only if the code is optimized for multi-core use. Now most apps use only two or four cores.
True but Android smartphones have many processes running at the same time so even if you have one game in background using say 4 cores there’s still 6 more cores to handle background tasks.
And if the hardware is there with many cores maybe the software will support these many-core SOCs eventually.
Yes, but I thought that would start with the first octa-cores. But I haven’t found any evidence of any real performance with so many cores. Nowhere I found a document stating the workings of how Android can put so many different processor though the processor. It’s all only about four cores.
With the launch of the MediaTek 6592 octa-core they told the media that Chrome would be able to use all 8 of the cores but I haven’t found any proof of that.
In short; as MediaTek starts to get bigger and bigger maybe developers will start to build apps with 8 (or 10) core support in it. Until that time it’s good to see they use the many cores for power-level balance.
Yes, but I thought that would start with the first octa-cores. But I haven’t found any evidence of any real performance with so many cores. Nowhere I found a document stating the workings of how Android can put so many different processor though the processor. It’s all only about four cores.
With the launch of the MediaTek 6592 octa-core they told the media that Chrome would be able to use all 8 of the cores but I haven’t found any proof of that.
In short; as MediaTek starts to get bigger and bigger maybe developers will start to build apps with 8 (or 10) core support in it. Until that time it’s good to see they use the many cores for power-level balance.
True but Android smartphones have many processes running at the same time so even if you have one game in background using say 4 cores there’s still 6 more cores to handle background tasks.
And if the hardware is there with many cores maybe the software will support these many-core SOCs eventually.
Absolutely, more cores on lower frequencies are better but only if the code is optimized for multi-core use. Now most apps use only two or four cores.
Dont think it is so easy to implement, most apps use 2-4 cores and many only one.
But to run A72 and A53 at 2ghz when loaded and 4 slower A53 cores when idle is a good thing.
What would make more sense would be a 4/4/2 configuration. (A72 / A53@2GHz / A53@1.4GHz).
A53s@1.4GHz when topped, will consume the same power as the middle ones at the same speed, so if you bottleneck the lower 1.4GHz then it’s already time to put the middle ones to work without power penalty, because the 2GHz can scale back to 1.4GHz on the same power envelope. What the middle ones can’t scale back is to the base clock frequency of the 1.4GHz when on the first multiplier.
That’s the only reason the 1.4GHz ones exist.
Of course 4xA72 that would be a lot more expensive (and ocuppy a lot more circuit real estate), so maybe it’s not possible/economicaly viable.
I always wondered about those setups: what happen’s when a single-core process is running? It obviously doesn’t max the quad A53 group (only one processor is used) so the process would not migrate to the powerful A72s and you phone would be left to seem slow while it isn’t…
It would. Consider that A53 @ 1GHz (stellar performance / power consumption frequency) is as fast as A7 @ 1.35GHz.
Probably it depends whether it bottlenecks that one processor. If it does, it should migrate.
But how would the os know? Android may well balance the load on all four cores, i.e. the OS would think that only 25% of the cluster is used (one core’s load balanced to four cores). Or am i missing something?
What would make more sense would be a 4/4/2 configuration. (A72 / A53@2GHz / A53@1.4GHz).
A53s@1.4GHz when topped, will consume the same power as the middle ones at the same speed, so if you bottleneck the lower 1.4GHz then it’s already time to put the middle ones to work without power penalty, because the 2GHz can scale back to 1.4GHz on the same power envelope. What the middle ones can’t scale back is to the base clock frequency of the 1.4GHz when on the first multiplier.
That’s the only reason the 1.4GHz ones exist.
Of course 4xA72 that would be a lot more expensive (and ocuppy a lot more circuit real estate), so maybe it’s not possible/economicaly viable.
Marketing? If the do the right thing right away, what will they sell later? Next tri-cluster generation will follow this idea and will be marketed as something new.
Marketing? If the do the right thing right away, what will they sell later? Next tri-cluster generation will follow this idea and will be marketed as something new.
you all need to understand – not every piece of silicone are the same, not every A53 core capable of 2.0ghz, so, you want mediatech to throw them all? just look at PC CPUs or even mobile SOC, when you overclock them, you probably won’t have the same results as other users.