10 core Hello P20 to be 16nm chipset

Mediatek Helio P10 and X20 adoption is set to be sky-high for early 2016 but for phones coming later in the year they might receive the 16nm Helio P20.

The Helio P20 is set to come at some point this year, but with Helio X20 manufacture not kicking off until April (ish) don’t expect the P20 in a phone until at least summer.

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So a long wait, however when the chipset does arrive it will be built on a 16nm process to ensure a faster more efficient SoC. Although its still very early days yet and the P20 specs haven’t been released we expect Mediatek to give it some sort of combination of A72 and A53 cores (perhaps 6 x A53 and 4 x A72?).

If Mediatek continue at this pace a Helio X30 should be on the cards for the last quarter of 2016.

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About the author

Abbie
Abbie is a self confessed Chinese phone addict! After cutting her teeth on the Meizu M9 she hasn't been able to keep away from Chinese phones keeping her ear to the ground especially for the latest Shanzhai and clone news!

Lazar Prodanovic
January 29, 2016
It will be the same bullshit 3 cluster combo as on X20 (2x A72 & 2×4 A53) probably with lowered clocks compared to X20 & naturally cut down GPU.
They are starting even to cannibalize their own production with vast majority of similar products not even to mention how they won’t be able to maintain all of them.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  3 clusters make possible to build a stable 20nm soc more powerfull than all other unstable 20nm soc (except Apple A8 ones witch are stable but lower even on singlecore)…
  It make possible to have a very close to CPU singlecore power compared to 16 or even 14nm.
  It make possible to have a better multicore capabilities than 16 or 14nm.
  It allow not so bad gpu framerate in-game compared to throttling gpu (such as Adreno or mp8/mp12…see realjjj posts!)
  It allows good price for manufacturers.
  Bullshit is 28nm A72 rev0 on 650/652…throttling on s810’s 20nm A57 wasn’t enough?
  Or even put underclocked Kryo as LITTLE core.
  Not very higher (and not very stable, si lower on 25% of the bench), very lower multicore capabilities…with bigger die-size!
  Hypothetics shorter pipelines to reduce consumption due to lack of real LITTLE core…so maybe/probably lower JavaScript and html5 capabilities (like on Krait)
  Core usage and scheduling is good on mediatek’s.
  See how they make work A53 with corepilot on 6752 compared to simple clusters migration on S615… Same CPU, same clocked RAM… Far far better real-life usage.
  In my opinion, CPU on X20 in 20nm will be better and more stable than S820 in 14nm
  Waiting for real-life tests, not not partial benchmark comparisons.
  Kirin 950 seems to be good and stable too in 16nm…
  Time to Qualcomm and Samsung to stop promising with benchmarks and give real-life what is on the paper!
  As I dislike Apple, I must admit that they keep their promises : the power you pay (too expensive) is the power you get…you’re are not paying for 2.0ghz and have 960mhz instead!
  - Lazar Prodanovic
    January 29, 2016
    Two A53 clusters is a stupid power consuming thing that will just drain battery faster!
    Multicore capabilities depends on hardware & software interconnect!
    The Mali MP8 or MP12 will consume less energy to deliver same performance like MP4 & I believe in this case on this SoC it will be in a best case a puny T820 MP4. Not even to mention Adrenos that are much more power efficient than Multicore Malis.
    Go & sleep with him (realjjj).
    Wake up & get real!
    Compare NUU Z8*performance with Moto G (S410 @1.4GHz) & if you wish Huaweis.
    http://media.bestofmicro.com/P/W/555620/original/honor-5x-chart-2.png
    Then compare a power consumption between NUU & Moto G skip the Huawei this time to make it fair (because of battery size & cetera).
    http://media.bestofmicro.com/P/V/555619/original/honor-5x-chart-1.png
    A MTK hotplug aka Core Pilot is good but it’s still based on work queues & task migration. Don’t write about things you don’t have any idea of! The MT6752 is not on the same clock rates as S615 it is in rev 2 S615 & S617 by the way S617 works better. However their is a difference in the A53 rev 1 (Snapdragons) & rev 2 MTK but this whose major rev & the difference between A72 rev 0 & rev 1 is a small one. However MT6752 also uses more power then Snapdragon contrapart’s.
    Shorter pipeline means faster response but also smaller possible top frequency.
    The S652 will really give users a stellar real life experience.
    Aple raised ARM to be where it is now & they are not raping silicon with to big frequencies so much as others do (excluding Intel). Honey golden frequency to stay on the grean side is about 1GHz. I hate Apple for other reasons & in my case it goes way back (20+) years ago.
    - Plumplum
      January 29, 2016
      I think low frequency A53 is a low thermal gap between A72 and other hot part of the soc. It make a cold zone to prévention heating
      Pcmark one of the most incapable benchmark…
      Results depends if the soc is compatible with the app.
      I saw h265/4k capable vpu make shitty score on video part…
      This one is even worst than antutu!
      In your exemple mt6752 is capable of h265/1080p…s410 can’t do such a thing, hevc is limited to 720p!…pcmark said 410’s video decoder is better, how it be possible that a bench say such a stupide thing…and how can you show such an exemple…maybe because you don’t understand the weakness of some benchmarks!
      Second is writing score…it resieze text, compare score between fullhd ans HD screen is non sense!
      You can’t compare “experimental” rev0 cortex A53 un S410 with rev2 in mt6752…
      615 is rev 1, not 2!
      617 is rev 4…very close performance to rev 2 (geekbench 1.52ghz : 745 on 617, 1.49ghz : 730 on mt6732 quad core)
      Even if you underclock mt6752 to the same frequency than S410 it will still providence 15 or 20% more power un single core test.
      410 isn’t bad to use but it’s a technical failure due to rev 0 cortex A53…even 1.0ghz A53 rev3 on mt6735M sometime beats 1.2ghz rev0.
      The more fun is that the new 412 still seem use these rev0! Qualcomm laughting at their customers!
      Your remark about consumption is silly too…not the same frequency, not the same screen, not the same battery
      652 will be 25% less CPU performance in web browsing than x20 due to lower frequency…quad A72 28nm 1.8ghz is too much.
      800, 805, 810, how many throttling soc will they release before customers stop accepting…i thing 652 will ne one more…i’m not Alone!
      In my case, problemes with apple Start when they stop using things such SCSI and powerPC and make x86, they lying to customers who think they buy something else than a PC.
      Such as Qualcomm lying when they say s810 is 2.0ghz!
      I have problèmes with Intel’s mobile i7U because they performance like desktop i3!
      All that add confusion to customers is bad in my opinion
      - Lazar Prodanovic
        January 29, 2016
        PC Mark is not perfect but it’s probably the best one currently out there. It’s not PC Mark’s fault if some manufacturers didn’t use reference coding (as for instance Allwiner is doing) so it won’t work with what it should. Even old QDSP6 on S410 – S615 is better solution than pore ASICS on MTK so PC Mark result is actually right!
        LOOK AT THE PICTURES AGAIN!
        It’s not all about hardware you know their is much about software optimizations too. I wrote correct A53 revisions use eyeglasses next time.
        Again look at the pictures!
        My remark about power consumption is on the place & with more kernel optimizations (thanks to Linaro, CAF & cetera) things get even worse for MTK.
        As 1.8GHz whosent to much for S808 it certainly won’t be to much for S650 – 652. Their really isn’t much difference between 28nm HLP & 20 nm considering power consumption (look for comparation of 20 nm Exunoses).
        Use CAF chromium on Snapdragon & 1.8GHz Snapdragon will become faster than 2.2 MTK.
        I hated them for “Big brother is watching you” comercial (original Mac) & I hated them even more when they trow out Power RISC (Power PC) arhitekture, will probably hate them to the end of my days.
        You must really assume whole SoC as a sum of its parts & not just as one part of it. Qualcomm is still far out of the reach when it comes to celular radios (which is by the way second biggest power consumer in real usage as it always eorks), New DSP blocks are far superior to implementations MTK is using & Adrenos consume less power per W so yes S652 will be much better SoC for consumers in many ways.
        What did you expect from a Ultra low power CPU? Still it menages to achieve same performance as i3 with 2+ less power consumption. Their is no magic out there just a good or bad engineering.
        
        Plumplum
        January 29, 2016
        Problem with ulp is naming, not performances…they’re quite good for mobile usage…I didn’t expect more than an other name.
        When most of video player works with soc as Allwinner or Rockchip (VLC, Kodi, mxplayer…), Yes it’s a shame that PCmark isn’t able to use them properly. These players represent reality of mobile video reading, so that PCmark doesn’t represent reality.
        You can’t throw benchmark on the table without understanding what it mean…and if the result doesn’t represent reality…the benchmark is bad, it’s simple.
        An other exemple is using geekbench to compare RISC and CISC CPU …geekbench is unfair with x86…if you review an atom phone you shouldn’t talk about geekbench score.
        Even between Arm cores some results are funny…
        Take side by side a mt6752 (even in fullhd) and a s410…obviously, without any benchmark you will see.
        You can even take 615, it reacts worst than 6752 by far…more than the frequency difference…same apps often open about 50% faster on 6752 when it’s only 15% bigger on clock, no need to benchmark!
        Agree with cellular radio superiority of qualcomm.
        The second good thing on 820 is UFS 2.0…
        All other things aren’t so impressives outside benchmarks…as always with Qualcomm, good but not as good in reality than in benchmarks.
        And I have doubt about stability as Qualcomm often have problem with it…nearly always they doesn’t use lowpower core.
        I have doubt about their custom core solution…Krait worst than A15/A17 specialy in JavaScript/html5, Scorpion worst than A9… Their avantage : they were trully available before standard Arm.
        Even vellamo (edited by…Qualcomm) show the avantage (real one, you can see it in your webbrowser) of cortex A17 on a Krait 450…(I burn my nand due to the worst disk access I ever seen on rk3288…even worst than on Nexus 7 2012! but wow even at 1.8ghz A17 are damn fast in webbrowsing compared to 2.5ghz krait!)
        One of the biggest problem is…Google…always promote Qualcomm even when products are badly designed such as 810!
        Keep Mediatek low end image with Android One project (well is Google really sustain this, they’re not often talk about it)…
        And ignore intel. Are there economic links between Qualcomm and Google?
        What a shame when we expect diversity from Android
        
        Lazar Prodanovic
        January 29, 2016
        Their is something that is called a “Symphony menager” on last QC SoC’s in reality it’s task dividing scheduler that picks between possible execution units to with one it will send a task to be executed picking a right core or accelerator to be used & it alone will save about 20% of the juice SoC is using. Most of players won’t work good with newer Allwiner SoC’s & their is a lot of fuss in Linux community about Allwiner not using a proper video for Linux implementation & not publishing the sources that it’s obligated to do by the licence. Roock chip is entirely another story & old Rk3288 works wonderfully concerning this (it’s probably best choice for TV box) & even Ubuntu works good enough with it. From ones with good suport I can only mention Amologics more. Geekbench is pore example & reason why it works badly with X86 (Cisc) is because it uses only essential (SIMD) optimizations. If you want real estimations you need to use open industrial grade tests and compile them from the source with all needed optimizations & best tool chain for the architecture available (compiler, libs & other tool’s). How much can performance differ I will show you whit example of this essential math lib:
        http://www.yeppp.info/benchmarks.html
        It’s small academic project but easy to implement.
        Krait design whose cross mix of A7 & A15, whose really power efficient & rightly on pair with performance of A53 (but still more power efficient mainly thanks to its 32 bit design). Scorpions where bad & based on A8 design (altered), QC never managed to push it’s specific hardware design changes in the main stream (concerning software).
        I don’t use shit like Velamno for Web benchmarking, I am still at the Peacekeeper even it’s development stopped, find it best & not optimized for particular architecture or Web engine also like it doesn’t glorify rarely used components over usually used ones in real world (like Web GL over traditional html tasks).
        Google promotes what it have open stack to work with, it will never ever accept to work with closed property only one. Unfortunately now their isn’t much under open stuck this day’s (in smartphone world) only QC & Exunos as Texas Instruments & Broadcom left the market (mostly thanks to QC).
        You see Google doesn’t have much choice at all especially if you think about it how rarely Samsung collaborates with other manufacturers to use their SoC’s & I don’t think that will change.
        
        Plumplum
        January 29, 2016
        Hmmm I prefer Amlogic S812 box despite weaker A9 and lack of 10bits h265 than rk3288…
        All benchmark where better on rk3288, but real-life usingis better on S812.
        If when tweaking IO-Scheduler and cache, a simple mp3 on external hard drive stutter when system attempting to access emmc…I don’t know if problem comes from rk3288 or emmc…but I have a rk3188 and nand access aren’t good too on it
        
        Lazar Prodanovic
        January 29, 2016
        It comes from neither of them but poor optimized caching along with badly implemented block & Asynchronous IO’s on kernel side. Do try with deadline IO scheduler. It can also be cased by pore implementation of mutex locks, rq queue expires & cetera but deadline should resolve it anyway.
        Edit: It’s also important who’s set top box you used, only couple of manufacturers did a good job in mantinance & optimizing it.
        
        Plumplum
        January 29, 2016
        Yes I try deadline, and bigger cache, it improves a little, but problem was still there…now nand and box are fully dead…even try to shortcut the nand’s pins…it’s probably due to many plug/unplug
        Manufacturers was Sunchip under Ugoos name…
        My Tronsmart s812 is cool with 1To usb-harddrive on it (with FLAC and Blu-ray h265 ripped by me – originals only – great codec!), Kodi and Kore to pilot it from tablet
        
        Lazar Prodanovic
        January 29, 2016
        Did you herd a sad news Kodi is switching to default Android acceleration lib (under Android of course) so we can kiss goodbye manual contrast setting & other costume settings.
        
        Plumplum
        January 30, 2016
        I’m still on Isengard 15.2. I didn’t try Jarvis beta and candidate release…
        I heard that libstagefright support is suppressed in favor of Mediacodec…it’s sad that they give not the choice to userusers like previously releases.
        But I’m on Amlogic, so I will use AmCodec…they still support it…
        Mediacodec seem to have problem with 4k video display (green screen)
        Lazar Prodanovic
        January 30, 2016
        Well Jarvis is coming, they released a second release candidate last night.
        Mediacodec is being polished out concerning that problem & with it skins can finally be rendered in different (lower) resolution than movie (witch whose a grater performance problem). Good news is that DSP pack will also be landing on Android so it’s not all bad. ?
    - realjjj
      January 29, 2016
      You are seriously damaged.
      You attack me here for no reason and you make idiotic claims suggesting i ever argued that MP4 is good, or enough or better than MP12.
      You just talk without thinking. You are not incapable of thinking, you just refuse to count to 10 before opening your mouth and going off the rails.
      So just go forth and multiply.
      - Lazar Prodanovic
        January 29, 2016
        Em I?
        Do you want me to post an url to comments of yours where you claimed how MP4 Mali is better than MP12 or fresh one where you still claim how MP4 is better than MP8?
        I didn’t attacked you just told your friend to get litle closer to you if he wants.
        At the end me & him had a civilized normal conversation that even ended friendly.
        When I am not right I admit it & I am very capable of critical thinking with formal & un formal logic. I can multiple this with trigonometric progression but I don’t see any reason for that. Even an idiot knows difference between multiplication of: 1, 2, 3 with an possible exception of you.
        Now go & wash out that dirty mouth of yours!
        You know comments like this actually tells us all about your; good education, good behavior & how intelligent you really are.

Wolvie
January 29, 2016
Hopefully mediatek can stop their stubbornness.
If mediatek want to increase their high end customer base (AKA to fight Qualcomm flagship) then they have to start to LISTEN !
Start listening to what high end buyer want instead of manufacture something that buyer don’t want. Weak GPU is bad for those hardcore gamers.
What mediatek fight is the big arrogant bastard giant qualcomm. Brute force will not win this battle.
But again normally those high payed CEO are too big headed to listen down LOL.
- Guaire
  January 29, 2016
  - realjjj
    January 29, 2016
    you must note that the mate 8 is 1080p while the other 2 at 1440p.
    you can also use this link but with the waring that some are 1080p and some 1440p http://www.anandtech.com/bench/PhoneTablet14/995
    - Lazar Prodanovic
      January 29, 2016
      Try with Meizu MX5 Pro instead of Samsung who is known to go with bad GPU optimizations +Meizu have better thermals (bigger case & cetera) then tell me which one is better!
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  If you were a gamer you would know that those big GPUs don’t deliver what they are supposed to and they just throttle really hard after a little while.
  So one would have to conclude that you don’t know anything at all about gaming, you’ve just seen some empty scores in synthetic benchmarks and got fooled by them
  On the other hand,if Mediatek does go after the very high end (and they appear to be doing that with the x30),they do need to offer a bigger GPU but you’ll still whine about it even if they beat the others since the others will be faster before they throttle and drop hard.
  The Galaxy S6 can only offer borderline acceptable perf at 1440p in actual gaming with min framerates dropping bellow 30FPS often enough.
  Key point, get informed.
- Steven Fox
  January 29, 2016
  Basically even a Mali 880MP2 should be fine for games on FHD screen for a year to come, or put a 860MP4(if cores are smaller).
  This P20 if it comes with a 860MP4 could be a hell of a chip for mid-range, also they could use PowerVR 6630 or even the newer 7th series, but problem is that they are more expensive to licence than ARM’s Mali.
  - Muhammad Yasir
    January 30, 2016
- balcobomber25
  January 29, 2016
  It’s not called being stubborn, it’s called being smart. Their CEO is doing one of the best jobs in this industry. His clients (OEM’s) aren’t asking for high end CPU’s, they want the budget to lower flagship SoC’s. And Mediatek is carving a name for themselves as one of the best SoC makers in those segments. They don’t need to compete with Qualcomm on every level in order to be a success. Audi and Volvo are competitors, Volvo doesn’t need a supercar like the Audi R8 to compete.
- highwind
  January 30, 2016
  That is actually very funny biased opinion, virtually ignoring any reality xD
  1. Mediatek IS increasing substaintually year after year, while Qualcomm is more or less stagnating the last years
  2. “Hardcore Gamers” is a completely unimportant share of smartphone users, probably not even making up 2% oft the whole market

realjjj
January 29, 2016
Obviously BS.
They won’t have a midrange SoC on 16ff before they have a high end SoC on the process lol.
They’ll have the X30 and maybe a few more, a P20 or P30 would be likely in Q4 -Q1 on 16FFC.
Now lets start some BS rumor lol – when will they have an X40 on 10nm in 2017? Early in Q1 or late in the year? Give it a week or 2 and some Weibo account will “leak” some fake news about an X40.
- January 29, 2016
  It’s not uncommon that a company rolls out new features on midrange tech first. Plus who’s to say another more powerful chip on 16nm won’t be announced before the P20?
  - realjjj
    January 29, 2016
    “don’t expect the P20 in a phone until at least summer.”
    “If Mediatek continue at this pace a Helio X30 should be on the cards for the last quarter of 2016.”
    So the article implies that the P20 could arrive before the x30.
    As for not being uncommon for midrange to…
    Actually it would be, they wouldn’t call it P20,they would call it X30 if it was the best SoC they got, and it would be.
    You can’t really make a 15-20$ SoC on 16ff first either instead of a 40-50$ SoC You got much lower margins in the midrange.and the costs are very high on 16ff. Not only producing the chip but dev costs. You spend 100 million to make a 16ff chip and then you got to recup that. That becomes rather difficult with a cheap SoC with low margins.
    Yes they’ll have the x30 at some point soon-ish on 16ff+ and then likely some kind of cut down version transitioned to 16FFC as a P20 or 30 in maybe Q4-Q1.
    They report Q4 results on Feb 2 i think and during the call they might share some info on their plans and timing, they usually do.Ofc there is MWC soon too and chances are they’ll announce the X30 then and a timing.
    The official timing so far was X30 in Q2 and midrange on 16ff in the second half of the year. If they mean production or shipping, hard to say and the difference between those is at least a quarter, as the chip spends a long time in the fab.
    - Plumplum
      January 29, 2016
      As I like X20 ways, I dislike X30 ones…
      I think 6 A72 are useless in real-life…
      2 big cores (or maybe 4 max like on kirin 950) are enough to run foreground tasks…
      To run background tasks A53 are powerfull enough…
      6A72 lead to higher price and higher thermal problems.
      I prefer seeing higher clocked dual A72 (and maybe a 4th cluster with A35)
      - realjjj
        January 29, 2016
        There is nothing to suggest that rumor has any base in reality. A lot of nonsense is said on Weibo and spreads.
        I have no idea what X30 will be.
        2+2+4 would make sense marketing wise, they could clock the top cores a bit higher than folks with 4+4/ Qualcomm achieves a similar goal with 2+2 since the 2 lower clocked cores should be at about half the power of the higher clocked ones.
        Hard to guess how perf and power goes with diff combinations but they do run simulations with actual apps so their decisions are based on data not assumptions.
        Nvidia seems to be going with 2xDenver and 4xA57 but their problems are more complex.
- Dis
  January 29, 2016
  The A72 on the 650 is kind of a new tech on mid range before high end. Depends how A72 is vs a Kryo core.
  - realjjj
    January 29, 2016
    This is not about the core, it’s about the process. Dev costs are 2x on 16ff vs 28nm and the cost per transistor is higher too.
    Mediatek had A72 before Qualcoom on 28nm, in the MT8173 tablet SoC, so far only used in the Amazon TV box but that’s offtopic.
    - Dis
      January 29, 2016
      - realjjj
        January 29, 2016

Steven Fox
January 29, 2016
It has some merit to it as the P10 won`t last against SD650(much better performance all round, and better GPU than the X20 for that matter).
Only way for MTK to catch up is to shrink the die to put more GPU/CPU cores in there.
Maybe they should look at an alternative Power VR 7th series low end GT7200/7400 or a higher clocked 6430.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  The SD650 would put some indirect pressure on P10 if priced low enough but the P10 goes against the SD617 and less and it wins there. Plus they can pressure the SD65x from above with the x20 once the x30 arrives.
  The SD65x and the X20 don’t really have direct competitors., each should address a different price band and perf level. Spreadtrum is also a major factor as they are the only other competitor with very high volumes and they are about to rise above the low end.
  - Plumplum
    January 29, 2016
    Can’t be priced like p10 due to most expensive :
    – A72 fab (size)
    – A72 licence
    – big.LITTLE licence
    – on-paper more powerfull GPU
    615 was cheaper than mt6752 due too same A53, same performances GPU and worst process (28nm LP instead of HKMG)…it can’t be the same between 650 and P10!
    On paper, 650 is way better than P10, that wasn’t the case for 615
    A72 2.0ghz mt8173 is designed for tablets and even TV box (firetv is the only one i heard about) or chromebooks…thermal dissipation is easier than in a smartphone.
    It’s one of the mediatek tablette chip witch doesn’t exists for smartphone (as mt8752 is the tablet’s version of 6752 or 8382 is 6582’s one)
    Gpu is a smaller vr6250 compare to heavy 510…whole thermal dissipation (including both CPU and gpu) counts.
    I think x20 will put more preasure on 650/652 than 650 puts on P10.
    About pour answer…I hope you’re right and that rumors about x30 are wrong…
    I think, related to corepilot, mediatek should release in-order custom cores to replace out-of-order A72…
    If in-order big cores are dangerous in k1 dual-cores…in a decacore, in-order big cores aren’t a problem due to the amount of threads
    We can imagine great single threaded power, great multi threaded power, cheaper price, better thermal and lower price.
    - realjjj
      January 29, 2016
      I never said SD650 would be priced like the P10 , in fact i sated that it has no direct competitor. What i said was indirect pressure if priced low enough. As in, lets say, 25$ vs 15$. What would you chose in a 150-200$ phone as an OEM? Same goes for X20 vs SD65x , if priced low enough the X20 can put pressure from above, not at the same price though.
      Custom CPU cores are not worth it for them, CPU perf is good enough , ARM will have a new one every year and seems that they’ll soon have an even bigger core that would fit in x2 configs not x4. Custom GPU is another matter,perf there won’ t be good enough anytime soon but it is too late for that in phones ,they should focus on glasses at 50-100 times lower power.
      maybe this recent article would interest you http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328616
    - realjjj
      January 31, 2016
      You know, about going 2+4 big cores, that might work if you think of it from the dark silicon, temperature throttled perspective. It would be in the high end so cost is less of an issue, perf being the primary factor. They could have 2x @ some 2.7GHz and 4x @ 1.5-2GHz max clocks, going up and down depending on temps. They would get a lot of crap for going with “too many cores” from some people and a lot of crap from others arguing that the SoC throttles but ,in the end, they would have the better SoC. Sure they couldn’t put 100% load on all 6 cores at max clocks, but that would not be the goal in the first place. They could in theory fully load all 6 long term when the 4x cluster is at 1.5GHz but in practice apps don’t put 100% load on 6 cores and if anything would, it would be for a short time. So with half decent thermal management they could make it work rather well in actual usage . Oddly it would play badly with marketing even if their approach would be positive, unless marketing manages to properly explain what they are doing and why. Ofc if they go this way they absolutely do need to disclose what is going on.
      You do squeeze more out of it this way and it’s not by any means a new concept so , as long as done right, why not. It would be helpful in addressing tabs and TV boxes too ,since the same SkU can get better perf in a device that allows for higher TDP.
      So ,at this point, when it comes to 2+4 i would say, yes please , as long as thermal management is done right. Why the hell say no to more, would never do that in PC – speaking of PC , so many A72s would be a nice Linux desktop.
  - Muhammad Yasir
    January 30, 2016
    - realjjj
      January 30, 2016
      hehe haven’t really heard any fresh news just some hint about MWC but i would assume that’s when they announce it and availability would be later.
      On the SoC side we got plenty exciting products this year, all else not so much. Worried that we are about to see lots of new high end phones with flat 1440p screens and that’s so 2 years ago.More pentile, more home buttons, more huge upper and lower bezels cos … Apple. On the cam side the best pixel quality is somewhere between 12 and 16MP so we’ll be stuck there but at the same time 8k TVs are retailing and phone cams need to fill all those pixels soon, except they can’t. So i’m afraid this year the high end will be a pseudo upper mid range with shitty design and poor prices Granted that just makes the midrange even better value.
      Phone makers are out of ideas, out of solutions and more focused on profits than on the product.
      /me is bored,no news on weekends.not sure who invented that
      - Muhammad Yasir
        January 30, 2016
  - Karly Johnston
    January 30, 2016
    The P10 is less than the X10. It isn’t in the same catagory/generation of 650. The X20 is SUPPOSED to be competing in that space but it is currently using a cloaking device.
    - realjjj
      February 1, 2016
      lol another one that misses the term “indirect pressure”
      the X20 is above SD65x, not in the same league, so again indirect pressure form above, as i actually stated.
      the p10 is not less than the x10 , it has advantages and disadvantages . x10 is practically ending its life as its power consumption is high vs p10 , it costs more and it lacks cat6.
      - Karly Johnston
        February 1, 2016
        SD650 has better gpu than X20, SD652 has better cpu and gpu. The P10 is slower than the X10. Read a benchmark or two. Do really care about CAT6? I doubt you have access to higher than CAT4. I have CAT10 capability, stuck on 4.
        
        realjjj
        February 1, 2016
        Why do you persist in spreading nonsense, do you get payed for it? You did the same a week or 2 ago in the note 3 pro article comments.
        For the 5th time ,stop spreading BS.
        x20 is well above SD65x, any drunk monkey knows that.
        p10 yes it is a bit slower than the x10 and has lesser encoder/decoder but has many advantages too and at this point those advantages make it the better option. You won’t see new phones launched with the x10 , it would simply be moronic to do so and the vast majority will chose the P10.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  Hmmm 650…better GPU than x20…on paper.
  But cortex A72 with 28nm process…wow, will it be able to sustain fréquence or will the framerate drop?
  Adreno 430 is far far far better than powervr6200…
  But on Real Racing 3, framerate sometime drop lower on Oneplus 2 than on Meizu mx5.
  There are hudge difference between benchmark and reality.
  - Guaire
    January 29, 2016
    If power consumption and sustainability of Kirin 950 (manufactured at 16FF+) is any indication, dual A72 clocked to 1.8GHz at 28nm HPM should be sustainable indefinitely, in theory. Probably even the SD652 gonna be fine for not so long durations of max loads.
    I guess frame drops is more related to GPU. Getting sustainable performance from GPU is unlikely IMO.
  - Steven Fox
    January 29, 2016
    This is with Adreno 510, which is somwhere near the Adreno 418-420 performance range, and is not in the caliber of 430(about 20-25% faster).
    Most of the Snapdragon 810 related issues are CPU related, and not GPU, 430, 418 run without a hickup, but the CPU throttles.
    The X20 will be a great chip I do not doubt that, but it lacks the quality manufacturer to back it up(besides Meizu and Xiaomi, the first being ridiculously expensive, the other with very bloated UI).
    In general, the best chip on the market now is the Kirin 950, the X20 should be able to match it in every way, and lets hope it won’t have Wi-Fi issues or whatever.
    - balcobomber25
      January 29, 2016
      Meizu only makes one ridiculously expensive phone, the Pro and that uses Samsung chips. X20 powered phones from them will be priced from $150-300.
      Some of the biggest manufacturers have been rumored to launching a X20 phone including: HTC, Sony, LG, Huawei. Xiaomi, Meizu, Zoppo and ZTE. Not sure how many of those you consider “quality” manufacturers.
      - Steven Fox
        January 30, 2016
        Rumoured is not the same thing as actually launching those devices.
        If the new Snapdragon Lineup proves to be very good, why would they ship out MTK devices?
        They might do certain models for different markets with MTK SoC and for the American and European market the same phone would feature an equivalent Snapdragon device.
        Snapdragon is still a good name across the western plane, even with the whole SD810 fiasco, most generic users would still pick Qualcomm inside, than Chinese MTK.
        
        balcobomber25
        January 30, 2016
        Because the X20 and P10 is also rumored to be very good chips. And many of those companies have experience working with Mediatek, and then there is also the price aspect. MTK chips are cheaper than Qualcomm chips. Just because one chip is good doesn;t mean every company will only want to use that chip. Most generic users don’t know the difference between Snapdragon and MTK, the average user has no clue what is inside his phone he buys it for the brand name.
      - Karly Johnston
        January 30, 2016
        It has been rumoured over 6 months and none of it has come to pass. Let your phantom X20 remain stillborn and get you some 650 goodness.
        
        balcobomber25
        January 31, 2016
        What has been rumored? The X20 was announced in May and just about every industry analyst said it wouldn’t be out till Q1 2016….
        Karly Johnston
        January 31, 2016
        First rumored phones were for July then September, October, November, December, January… now it is February. Now that QC has A72 based phones to market they had better get one out soon or they will be a distant memory.
        
        balcobomber25
        January 31, 2016
        Links to all these rumored phones.
        Karly Johnston
        January 31, 2016
        This is the first, you know all the ones after.
        balcobomber25
        January 31, 2016
        Ahh Oukitel a very “reliable” brand, next post something about Elephone that will give you some credibility.
        Karly Johnston
        January 31, 2016
        So you go ahead and tell us when and what the first X20 phone will be.
        
        balcobomber25
        January 31, 2016
        I will wait for reputable phone manufacturers to announce that and with MWC taking place at the end of the month I am sure we will find out.
        Karly Johnston
        January 31, 2016
        That’s the problem, we wait and there is no announcement while QC beats them to market.
        
        balcobomber25
        January 31, 2016
        Except for MWC hasn’t happened yet, so we don’t know if there will be an announcement. If I was a betting man I would be my a lot that there will be plenty of announcements.
        Karly Johnston
        February 1, 2016
        CES already happened and no announcement, every month we wait and no announcement. It is getting long in the tooth now.
        
        balcobomber25
        February 1, 2016
        CES isn’t focused on phones, especially phones coming from China. The only major Chinese company that was at CES was Huaweii and they make their own chips (Kirin). MWC is the biggest smartphone event of the year, most companies wait for MWC to make their announcements.
        Karly Johnston
        February 1, 2016
        CES was the launch of the first 820 by LeTV. It doesn’t get any bigger than that in 2016.
        balcobomber25
        February 1, 2016
        MWC is the biggest event for smartphones every year. LeTV and Huaweii were at CES because they wanted to capture the American audience. All of the top phones for 2016 will be announced at MWC though. It it like that every year.

Lazar Prodanovic
January 29, 2016
It will be the same bullshit 3 cluster combo as on X20 (2x A72 & 2×4 A53) probably with lowered clocks compared to X20 & naturally cut down GPU.
They are starting even to cannibalize their own production with vast majority of similar products not even to mention how they won’t be able to maintain all of them.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  3 clusters make possible to build a stable 20nm soc more powerfull than all other unstable 20nm soc (except Apple A8 ones witch are stable but lower even on singlecore)…
  It make possible to have a very close to CPU singlecore power compared to 16 or even 14nm.
  It make possible to have a better multicore capabilities than 16 or 14nm.
  It allow not so bad gpu framerate in-game compared to throttling gpu (such as Adreno or mp8/mp12…see realjjj posts!)
  It allows good price for manufacturers.
  Bullshit is 28nm A72 rev0 on 650/652…throttling on s810’s 20nm A57 wasn’t enough?
  Or even put underclocked Kryo as LITTLE core.
  Not very higher (and not very stable, si lower on 25% of the bench), very lower multicore capabilities…with bigger die-size!
  Hypothetics shorter pipelines to reduce consumption due to lack of real LITTLE core…so maybe/probably lower JavaScript and html5 capabilities (like on Krait)
  Core usage and scheduling is good on mediatek’s.
  See how they make work A53 with corepilot on 6752 compared to simple clusters migration on S615… Same CPU, same clocked RAM… Far far better real-life usage.
  In my opinion, CPU on X20 in 20nm will be better and more stable than S820 in 14nm
  Waiting for real-life tests, not not partial benchmark comparisons.
  Kirin 950 seems to be good and stable too in 16nm…
  Time to Qualcomm and Samsung to stop promising with benchmarks and give real-life what is on the paper!
  As I dislike Apple, I must admit that they keep their promises : the power you pay (too expensive) is the power you get…you’re are not paying for 2.0ghz and have 960mhz instead!
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  Two A53 clusters is a stupid power consuming thing that will just drain battery faster!
  Multicore capabilities depends on hardware & software interconnect!
  The Mali MP8 or MP12 will consume less energy to deliver same performance like MP4 & I believe in this case on this SoC it will be in a best case a puny T820 MP4. Not even to mention Adrenos that are much more power efficient than Multicore Malis.
  Go & sleep with him (realjjj).
  Wake up & get real!
  Compare NUU Z8 performance with Moto G (S410 @1.4GHz) & if you wish Huaweis.
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  Then compare a power consumption between NUU & Moto G skip the Huawei this time to make it fair (because of battery size & cetera).
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  A MTK hotplug aka Core Pilot is good but task execution it’s still based on work queues & task migration. Don’t write about things you don’t have any idea of! The MT6752 is not on the same clock rates as S615 it is in rev 2 S615 & S617 by the way S617 works better. However their is a difference in the A53 rev 1 (Snapdragons) & rev 2 MTK but this whose major rev & the difference between A72 rev 0 & rev 1 is a small one. However MT6752 also uses more power then Snapdragon contrapart’s.
  Shorter pipeline means faster response but also smaller possible top frequency.
  The S652 will really give users a stellar real life experience.
  Aple raised ARM to be where it is now & they are not raping silicon with to big frequencies so much as others do (excluding Intel). Honey golden frequency to stay on the grean side is about 1GHz. I hate Apple for other reasons & in my case it goes way back (20+) years ago.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  I think low frequency A53 is a low thermal gap between A72 and other hot part of the soc. It make a cold zone to prévention heating
  Pcmark one of the most incapable benchmark…
  Results depends if the soc is compatible with the app.
  I saw h265/4k capable vpu make shitty score on video part…
  This one is even worst than antutu!
  In your exemple mt6752 is capable of h265/1080p…s410 can’t do such a thing, hevc is limited to 720p!…pcmark said 410’s video decoder is better, how it be possible that a bench say such a stupide thing…and how can you show such an exemple…maybe because you don’t understand the weakness of some benchmarks!
  Second is writing score…it resieze text, compare score between fullhd ans HD screen is non sense!
  You can’t compare “experimental” rev0 cortex A53 un S410 with rev2 in mt6752…
  615 is rev 1, not 2!
  617 is rev 4…very close performance to rev 2 (geekbench 1.52ghz : 745 on 617, 1.49ghz : 730 on mt6732 quad core)
  Even if you underclock mt6752 to the same frequency than S410 it will still providence 15 or 20% more power un single core test.
  410 isn’t bad to use but it’s a technical failure due to rev 0 cortex A53…even 1.0ghz A53 rev3 on mt6735M sometime beats 1.2ghz rev0.
  The more fun is that the new 412 still seem use these rev0! Qualcomm laughting at their customers!
  Your remark about consumption is silly too…not the same frequency, not the same screen, not the same battery
  652 will be 25% less CPU performance in web browsing than x20 due to lower frequency…quad A72 28nm 1.8ghz is too much.
  800, 805, 810, how many throttling soc will they release before customers stop accepting…i thing 652 will ne one more…i’m not Alone!
  In my case, problemes with apple Start when they stop using things such SCSI and powerPC and make x86, they lying to customers who think they buy something else than a PC.
  Such as Qualcomm lying when they say s810 is 2.0ghz!
  I have problèmes with Intel’s mobile i7U because they performance like desktop i3!
  All that add confusion to customers is bad in my opinion
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  PC Mark is not perfect but it’s probably the best one currently out there. It’s not PC Mark’s fault if some manufacturers didn’t use reference coding (as for instance Allwiner is doing) so it won’t work with what it should. Even old QDSP6 on S410 – S615 is better solution than pore ASICS on MTK so PC Mark result is actually right!
  LOOK AT THE PICTURES AGAIN!
  It’s not all about hardware you know their is much about software optimizations too. I wrote correct A53 revisions use eyeglasses next time.
  Again look at the pictures!
  My remark about power consumption is on the place & with more kernel optimizations (thanks to Linaro, CAF & cetera) things get even worse for MTK.
  As 1.8GHz whosent to much for S808 it certainly won’t be to much for S650 – 652. Their really isn’t much difference between 28nm HLP & 20 nm considering power consumption (look for comparation of 20 nm Exunoses).
  Use CAF chromium on Snapdragon & 1.8GHz Snapdragon will become faster than 2.2 MTK.
  I hated them for “Big brother is watching you” comercial (original Mac) & I hated them even more when they trow out Power RISC (Power PC) arhitekture, will probably hate them to the end of my days.
  You must really assume whole SoC as a sum of its parts & not just as one part of it. Qualcomm is still far out of the reach when it comes to celular radios (which is by the way second biggest power consumer in real usage as it always works), New DSP blocks are far superior to implementations MTK is using & Adrenos consume less power per W to achieve same lv of performance so yes S652 will be much better SoC for consumers in many ways.
  What did you expect from a Ultra low power CPU? Still it menages to achieve same performance as i3 with 2+ less power consumption. Their is no magic out there just a good or bad engineering.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  Problem with ulp is naming, not performances…they’re quite good for mobile usage…I didn’t expect more than an other name.
  When most of video player works with soc as Allwinner or Rockchip (VLC, Kodi, mxplayer…), Yes it’s a shame that PCmark isn’t able to use them properly. These players represent reality of mobile video reading, so that PCmark doesn’t represent reality.
  You can’t throw benchmark on the table without understanding what it mean…and if the result doesn’t represent reality…the benchmark is bad, it’s simple.
  An other exemple is using geekbench to compare RISC and CISC CPU …geekbench is unfair with x86…if you review an atom phone you shouldn’t talk about geekbench score.
  Even between Arm cores some results are funny…
  Take side by side a mt6752 (even in fullhd) and a s410…obviously, without any benchmark you will see.
  You can even take 615, it reacts worst than 6752 by far…more than the frequency difference…same apps often open about 50% faster on 6752 when it’s only 15% bigger on clock, no need to benchmark!
  Agree with cellular radio superiority of qualcomm.
  The second good thing on 820 is UFS 2.0…
  All other things aren’t so impressives outside benchmarks…as always with Qualcomm, good but not as good in reality than in benchmarks.
  And I have doubt about stability as Qualcomm often have problem with it…nearly always they doesn’t use lowpower core.
  I have doubt about their custom core solution…Krait worst than A15/A17 specialy in JavaScript/html5, Scorpion worst than A9… Their avantage : they were trully available before standard Arm.
  Even vellamo (edited by…Qualcomm) show the avantage (real one, you can see it in your webbrowser) of cortex A17 on a Krait 450…(I burn my nand due to the worst disk access I ever seen on rk3288…even worst than on Nexus 7 2012! but wow even at 1.8ghz A17 are damn fast in webbrowsing compared to 2.5ghz krait!)
  One of the biggest problem is…Google…always promote Qualcomm even when products are badly designed such as 810!
  Keep Mediatek low end image with Android One project (well is Google really sustain this, they’re not often talk about it)…
  And ignore intel. Are there economic links between Qualcomm and Google?
  What a shame when we expect diversity from Android
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  Their is something that is called a “Symphony menager” on last QC SoC’s in reality it’s task dividing scheduler that picks between possible execution units to with one it will send a task to be executed picking a right core or accelerator to be used & it alone will save about 20% of the juice SoC is using. Most of players won’t work good with newer Allwiner SoC’s & their is a lot of fuss in Linux community about Allwiner not using a proper video for Linux implementation & not publishing the sources that it’s obligated to do by the licence. Roock chip is entirely another story & old Rk3288 works wonderfully concerning this (it’s probably best choice for TV box) & even Ubuntu works good enough with it. From ones with good suport I can only mention Amologics more. Geekbench is pore example & reason why it works badly with X86 (Cisc) is because it uses only essential (SIMD) optimizations. If you want real estimations what can be achieved you need to use open industrial grade tests and compile them from the source with all needed optimizations & best tool chain for the architecture available (compiler, libs & other tool’s). How much can performance differ I will show you whit example of this essential math lib:
  http://www.yeppp.info/benchmarks.html
  It’s small academic project but easy to implement.
  Krait design whose cross mix of A7 & A15, whose really power efficient & roughly on pair with performance of A53 (but still more power efficient mainly thanks to its 32 bit design). Scorpions where bad & based on A8 design (altered), QC never managed to push it’s specific hardware design changes in the main stream (concerning software).
  I don’t use shit like Velamno for Web benchmarking, I am still at the Peacekeeper even it’s development stopped, find it best & not optimized for particular architecture or Web engine also like it doesn’t glorify rarely used components over usually used ones in real world (like Web GL over traditional html tasks).
  Google promotes what it have open stack to work with, it will never ever accept to work with closed property only one. Unfortunately now their isn’t much under open stuck this day’s (in smartphone world) only QC & Exunos as Texas Instruments & Broadcom left the market (mostly thanks to QC).
  You see Google doesn’t have much choice at all especially if you think about it how rarely Samsung collaborates with other manufacturers to use their SoC’s & I don’t think that will change.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  Hmmm I prefer Amlogic S812 box despite weaker A9 and lack of 10bits h265 than rk3288…
  All benchmark where better on rk3288, but real-life usingis better on S812.
  If when tweaking IO-Scheduler and cache, a simple mp3 on external hard drive stutter when system attempting to access emmc…I don’t know if problem comes from rk3288 or emmc…but I have a rk3188 and nand access aren’t good too on it
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  It comes from neither of them but poor optimized caching along with badly implemented block & Asynchronous IO’s on kernel side. Do try with deadline IO scheduler. It can also be cased by pore implementation of mutex locks, rq queue expires & cetera but deadline should resolve it anyway.
  Edit: It’s also important who’s set top box you used, only couple of manufacturers did a good job in mantinance & optimizing it.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  Yes I try deadline, and bigger cache, it improves a little, but problem was still there…now nand and box are fully dead…even try to shortcut the nand’s pins…it’s probably due to many plug/unplug
  Manufacturers was Sunchip under Ugoos name…
  My Tronsmart s812 is cool with 1To usb-harddrive on it (with FLAC and Blu-ray h265 ripped by me – originals only – great codec!), Kodi and Kore to pilot it from tablet
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  Did you herd a sad news Kodi is switching to default Android acceleration lib (under Android of course) so we can kiss goodbye manual contrast setting & other costume settings.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  You are seriously damaged.
  You attack me here for no reason and you make idiotic claims suggesting i ever argued that MP4 is good, or enough or better than MP12.
  You just talk without thinking. You are not incapable of thinking, you just refuse to count to 10 before opening your mouth and going off the rails.
  So just go forth and multiply.
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 30, 2016
  Em I?
  Do you want me to post an url to comments of yours where you claimed how MP4 Mali is better than MP12 or fresh one where you still claim how MP4 is better than MP8?
  I didn’t attacked you just told your friend to get litle closer to you if he wants.
  At the end me & him had a civilized normal conversation that even ended friendly.
  When I am not right I admit it & I am very capable of critical thinking with formal & un formal logic. I can multiple this with trigonometric progression but I don’t see any reason for that. Even an idiot knows difference between multiplication of: 1, 2, 3 with an possible exception of you.
  Now go & wash out that dirty mouth of yours!
  You know comments like this actually tells us all about your; good education, good behavior & how intelligent you really are.
- Plumplum
  January 30, 2016
  I’m still on Isengard 15.2. I didn’t try Jarvis beta and candidate release…
  I heard that libstagefright support is suppressed in favor of Mediacodec…it’s sad that they give not the choice to userusers like previously releases.
  But I’m on Amlogic, so I will use AmCodec…they still support it…
  Mediacodec seem to have problem with 4k video display (green screen)
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 30, 2016
  Well Jarvis is coming, they released a second release candidate last night.
  Mediacodec is being polished out concerning that problem & with it skins can finally be rendered in different (lower) resolution than movie (witch whose a grater performance problem). Good news is that DSP pack will also be landing on Android so it’s not all bad. 😉

Guest
January 29, 2016
Hopefully mediatek can stop their stubbornness.
If mediatek want to increase their high end customer base (AKA to fight Qualcomm flagship) then they have to start to LISTEN !
Start listening to what high end buyer want instead of manufacture something that buyer don’t want. Weak GPU is bad for those hardcore gamers.
What mediatek fight is the big arrogant bastard giant qualcomm. Brute force will not win this battle.
But again normally those high payed CEO are too big headed to listen down LOL.
- Guaire
  January 29, 2016
  Adreno 430 vs Mali-T760 MP8 vs “weak” Mali-T880 MP4
- Guaire
  January 29, 2016
- January 29, 2016
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  you must note that the mate 8 is 1080p while the other 2 at 1440p.
  you can also use this link but with the waring that some are 1080p and some 1440p http://www.anandtech.com/bench/PhoneTablet14/995
  Edit: for the S6 you are using the graph with modified throttling but how the retailing device behaves is shown in the phone’s review ,here the proper graph
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  If you were a gamer you would know that those big GPUs don’t deliver what they are supposed to and they just throttle really hard after a little while.
  So one would have to conclude that you don’t know anything at all about gaming, you’ve just seen some empty scores in synthetic benchmarks and got fooled by them
  On the other hand,if Mediatek does go after the very high end (and they appear to be doing that with the x30),they do need to offer a bigger GPU but you’ll still whine about it even if they beat the others since the others will be faster before they throttle and drop hard.
  The Galaxy S6 can only offer borderline acceptable perf at 1440p in actual gaming with min framerates dropping bellow 30FPS often enough.
  Key point, get informed.
- Steven Fox
  January 29, 2016
  Basically even a Mali 880MP2 should be fine for games on FHD screen for a year to come, or put a 860MP4(if cores are smaller).
  This P20 if it comes with a 860MP4 could be a hell of a chip for mid-range, also they could use PowerVR 6630 or even the newer 7th series, but problem is that they are more expensive to licence than ARM’s Mali.
- balcobomber25
  January 29, 2016
  It’s not called being stubborn, it’s called being smart. Their CEO is doing one of the best jobs in this industry. His clients (OEM’s) aren’t asking for high end CPU’s, they want the budget to lower flagship SoC’s. And Mediatek is carving a name for themselves as one of the best SoC makers in those segments. They don’t need to compete with Qualcomm on every level in order to be a success. Audi and Volvo are competitors, Volvo doesn’t need a supercar like the Audi R8 to compete.
- Lazar Prodanovic
  January 29, 2016
  Try with Meizu MX5 Pro instead of Samsung who is known to go with bad GPU optimizations +Meizu have better thermals (bigger case & cetera) then tell me which one is better!
- Guest
  January 30, 2016
  boy do i hate hefty licensing fees -_- !
- provokanter Tabellenführer
  January 30, 2016
  That is actually very funny biased opinion, virtually ignoring any reality xD
  1. Mediatek IS increasing substaintually year after year, while Qualcomm is more or less stagnating the last years
  2. “Hardcore Gamers” is a completely unimportant share of smartphone users, probably not even making up 2% oft the whole market

realjjj
January 29, 2016
Obviously BS, at least in part.
They won’t have a midrange SoC on 16ff before they have a high end SoC on the process lol.
They’ll have the X30 and maybe a few more, a P20 or P30 would be likely in Q4 -Q1 on 16FFC.
Now lets start some BS rumor lol – when will they have an X40 on 10nm in 2017? Early in Q1 or late in the year? Give it a week or 2 and some Weibo account will “leak” some fake news about an X40.
- Andi Sykes
  January 29, 2016
  It’s not uncommon that a company rolls out new features on midrange tech first. Plus who’s to say another more powerful chip on 16nm won’t be announced before the P20?
- Dis
  January 29, 2016
  The A72 on the 650 is kind of a new tech on mid range before high end. Depends how A72 is vs a Kryo core.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  “don’t expect the P20 in a phone until at least summer.”
  “If Mediatek continue at this pace a Helio X30 should be on the cards for the last quarter of 2016.”
  So the article implies that the P20 could arrive before the x30.
  As for not being uncommon for midrange to…
  Actually it would be, it would be unreasonable and they wouldn’t call it P20,they would call it X30 if it was the best SoC they got, and it would be.
  You can’t really make a 15-20$ SoC on 16ff first either instead of a 40-50$ SoC You got much lower margins in the midrange.and the costs are very high on 16ff. Not only producing the chip but dev costs. You spend 100 million to make a 16ff chip and then you got to recup that. That becomes rather difficult with a cheap SoC with low margins.
  Yes they’ll have the x30 at some point soon-ish on 16ff+ and then likely some kind of cut down version transitioned to 16FFC as a P20 or 30 in maybe Q4-Q1.
  They report Q4 results on Feb 2 i think and during the call they might share some info on their plans and timing, they usually do.Ofc there is MWC soon too and chances are they’ll announce the X30 then and a timing.
  The official timing so far was X30 in Q2 and midrange on 16ff in the second half of the year. If they mean production or shipping, hard to say and the difference between those is at least a quarter, as the chip spends a long time in the fab.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  This is not about the core, it’s about the process. Dev costs are 2x on 16ff vs 28nm and the cost per transistor is higher too.
  Mediatek had A72 before Qualcoom on 28nm, in the MT8173 tablet SoC, so far only used in the Amazon TV box but that’s offtopic.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  As I like X20 ways, I dislike X30 ones…
  I think 6 A72 are useless in real-life…
  2 big cores (or maybe 4 max like on kirin 950) are enough to run foreground tasks…
  To run background tasks A53 are powerfull enough…
  6A72 lead to higher price and higher thermal problems.
  I prefer seeing higher clocked dual A72 (and maybe a 4th cluster with A35)
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  There is nothing to suggest that rumor has any base in reality. A lot of nonsense is said on Weibo and spreads.
  I have no idea what X30 will be.
  2+2+4 would make sense marketing wise, they could clock the top cores a bit higher than folks with 4+4/ Qualcomm achieves a similar goal with 2+2 since the 2 lower clocked cores should be at about half the power of the higher clocked ones.
  Hard to guess how perf and power goes with diff combinations but they do run simulations with actual apps so their decisions are based on data not assumptions.
  Nvidia seems to be going with 2xDenver and 4xA57 but their problems are more complex.
- Dis
  January 29, 2016
  You said new tech, not new process.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  I was paraphrasing andi to indicate the topic
Steven Fox
January 29, 2016
It has some merit to it as the P10 won`t last against SD650(much better performance all round, and better GPU than the X20 for that matter).
Only way for MTK to catch up is to shrink the die to put more GPU/CPU cores in there.
Maybe they should look at an alternative Power VR 7th series low end GT7200/7400 or a higher clocked 6430.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  The SD650 would put some indirect pressure on P10 if priced low enough but the P10 goes against the SD617 and less and it wins there. Plus they can pressure the SD65x from above with the x20 once the x30 arrives.
  The SD65x and the X20 don’t really have direct competitors., each should address a different price band and perf level. Spreadtrum is also a major factor as they are the only other competitor with very high volumes and they are about to rise above the low end.
  MTK does have the 8173 and 8176 with A72 on 28nm but for tabs with no modem.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  Hmmm 650…better GPU than x20…on paper.
  But cortex A72 with 28nm process…wow, will it be able to sustain fréquence or will the framerate drop?
  Adreno 430 is far far far better than powervr6200…
  But on Real Racing 3, framerate sometime drop lower on Oneplus 2 than on Meizu mx5.
  There are hudge difference between benchmark and reality.
- Guaire
  January 29, 2016
  If power consumption and sustainability of Kirin 950 (manufactured at 16FF+) is any indication, dual A72 clocked to 1.8GHz at 28nm HPM should be sustainable indefinitely, in theory. Probably even the SD652 gonna be fine for not so long durations of max loads.
  I guess frame drops is more related to GPU. Getting sustainable performance from GPU is unlikely IMO.
- Steven Fox
  January 29, 2016
  This is with Adreno 510, which is somwhere near the Adreno 418-420 performance range, and is not in the caliber of 430(about 20-25% faster).
  Most of the Snapdragon 810 related issues are CPU related, and not GPU, 430, 418 run without a hickup, but the CPU throttles.
  The X20 will be a great chip I do not doubt that, but it lacks the quality manufacturer to back it up(besides Meizu and Xiaomi, the first being ridiculously expensive, the other with very bloated UI).
  In general, the best chip on the market now is the Kirin 950, the X20 should be able to match it in every way, and lets hope it won’t have Wi-Fi issues or whatever.
- Plumplum
  January 29, 2016
  Can’t be priced like p10 due to most expensive :
  – A72 fab (size)
  – A72 licence
  – big.LITTLE licence
  – on-paper more powerfull GPU
  615 was cheaper than mt6752 due too same A53, same performances GPU and worst process (28nm LP instead of HKMG)…it can’t be the same between 650 and P10!
  On paper, 650 is way better than P10, that wasn’t the case for 615
  A72 2.0ghz mt8173 is designed for tablets and even TV box (firetv is the only one i heard about) or chromebooks…thermal dissipation is easier than in a smartphone.
  It’s one of the mediatek tablette chip witch doesn’t exists for smartphone (as mt8752 is the tablet’s version of 6752 or 8382 is 6582’s one)
  Gpu is a smaller vr6250 compare to heavy 510…whole thermal dissipation (including both CPU and gpu) counts.
  I think x20 will put more preasure on 650/652 than 650 puts on P10.
  About pour answer…I hope you’re right and that rumors about x30 are wrong…
  I think, related to corepilot, mediatek should release in-order custom cores to replace out-of-order A72…
  If in-order big cores are dangerous in k1 dual-cores…in a decacore, in-order big cores aren’t a problem due to the amount of threads
  We can imagine great single threaded power, great multi threaded power, cheaper price, better thermal and lower price.
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  I never said SD650 would be priced like the P10 , in fact i sated that it has no direct competitor. What i said was indirect pressure if priced low enough. As in, lets say, 25$ vs 15$. What would you chose in a 150-200$ phone as an OEM? Same goes for X20 vs SD65x , if priced low enough the X20 can put pressure from above, not at the same price though.
  Custom CPU cores are not worth it for them, CPU perf is good enough , ARM will have a new one every year and seems that they’ll soon have an even bigger core that would fit in x2 configs not x4. Custom GPU is another matter,perf there won’ t be good enough anytime soon but it is too late for that in phones ,they should focus on glasses at 50-100 times lower power.
  maybe this recent article would interest you http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328616
- balcobomber25
  January 29, 2016
  Meizu only makes one ridiculously expensive phone, the Pro and that uses Samsung chips. X20 powered phones from them will be priced from $150-300.
  Some of the biggest manufacturers have been rumored to launching a X20 phone including: HTC, Sony, LG, Huawei. Xiaomi, Meizu, Zoppo and ZTE. Not sure how many of those you consider “quality” manufacturers.
- Guest
  January 30, 2016
  when is Spreadtrum coming with powerful Soc ?!
- Steven Fox
  January 30, 2016
  Rumoured is not the same thing as actually launching those devices.
  If the new Snapdragon Lineup proves to be very good, why would they ship out MTK devices?
  They might do certain models for different markets with MTK SoC and for the American and European market the same phone would feature an equivalent Snapdragon device.
  Snapdragon is still a good name across the western plane, even with the whole SD810 fiasco, most generic users would still pick Qualcomm inside, than Chinese MTK.
- realjjj
  January 30, 2016
  hehe haven’t really heard any fresh news just some hint about MWC but i would assume that’s when they announce it and availability would be later.
  On the SoC side we got plenty exciting products this year, all else not so much. Worried that we are about to see lots of new high end phones with flat 1440p screens and that’s so 2 years ago.More pentile, more home buttons, more huge upper and lower bezels cos … Apple. On the cam side the best pixel quality is somewhere between 12 and 16MP so we’ll be stuck there but at the same time 8k TVs are retailing and phone cams need to fill all those pixels soon, except they can’t. So i’m afraid this year the high end will be a pseudo upper mid range with shitty design and poor prices Granted that just makes the midrange even better value.
  Phone makers are out of ideas, out of solutions and more focused on profits than on the product.
  /me is bored,no news on weekends.not sure who invented that
- Guest
  January 30, 2016
  yea … i HATE quiet weekends too
- balcobomber25
  January 30, 2016
  Because the X20 and P10 is also rumored to be very good chips. And many of those companies have experience working with Mediatek, and then there is also the price aspect. MTK chips are cheaper than Qualcomm chips. Just because one chip is good doesn;t mean every company will only want to use that chip. Most generic users don’t know the difference between Snapdragon and MTK, the average user has no clue what is inside his phone he buys it for the brand name.
- Karly Johnston
  January 31, 2016
  It has been rumoured over 6 months and none of it has come to pass. Let your phantom X20 remain stillborn and get you some 650 goodness.
- Karly Johnston
  January 31, 2016
  The P10 is less than the X10. It isn’t in the same catagory/generation of 650. The X20 is SUPPOSED to be competing in that space but it is currently using a cloaking device.
- balcobomber25
  January 31, 2016
  What has been rumored? The X20 was announced in May and just about every industry analyst said it wouldn’t be out till Q1 2016….
- Karly Johnston
  January 31, 2016
  First rumored phones were for July then September, October, November, December, January… now it is February. Now that QC has A72 based phones to market they had better get one out soon or they will be a distant memory.
- balcobomber25
  January 31, 2016
  Links to all these rumored phones.
- Karly Johnston
  January 31, 2016
  This is the first, you know all the ones after.
- balcobomber25
  January 31, 2016
  Ahh Oukitel a very “reliable” brand, next post something about Elephone that will give you some credibility.
- realjjj
  February 1, 2016
  You know, about going 2+4 big cores, that might work if you think of it from the dark silicon, temperature throttled perspective. It would be in the high end so cost is less of an issue, perf being the primary factor. They could have 2x @ some 2.7GHz and 4x @ 1.5-2GHz max clocks, going up and down depending on temps. They would get a lot of crap for going with “too many cores” from some people and a lot of crap from others arguing that the SoC throttles but ,in the end, they would have the better SoC. Sure they couldn’t put 100% load on all 6 cores at max clocks, but that would not be the goal in the first place. They could in theory fully load all 6 long term when the 4x cluster is at 1.5GHz but in practice apps don’t put 100% load on 6 cores and if anything would, it would be for a short time. So with half decent thermal management they could make it work rather well in actual usage . Oddly it would play badly with marketing even if their approach would be positive, unless marketing manages to properly explain what they are doing and why. Ofc if they go this way they absolutely do need to disclose what is going on.
  You do squeeze more out of it this way and it’s not by any means a new concept so , as long as done right, why not. It would be helpful in addressing tabs and TV boxes too ,since the same SkU can get better perf in a device that allows for higher TDP.
  So ,at this point, when it comes to 2+4 i would say, yes please , as long as thermal management is done right. Why the hell say no to more, would never do that in PC – speaking of PC , so many A72s would be a nice Linux desktop.
- Karly Johnston
  February 1, 2016
  So you go ahead and tell us when and what the first X20 phone will be.
- balcobomber25
  February 1, 2016
  I will wait for reputable phone manufacturers to announce that and with MWC taking place at the end of the month I am sure we will find out.
- Karly Johnston
  February 1, 2016
  That’s the problem, we wait and there is no announcement while QC beats them to market.
- balcobomber25
  February 1, 2016
  Except for MWC hasn’t happened yet, so we don’t know if there will be an announcement. If I was a betting man I would be my a lot that there will be plenty of announcements.
- realjjj
  February 1, 2016
  lol another one that misses the term “indirect pressure”
  the X20 is above SD65x, not in the same league, so again indirect pressure form above, as i actually stated and further explained 2 days ago in a post a bit lower.
  the p10 is not less than the x10 , it has advantages and disadvantages . x10 is practically ending its life as its power consumption is high vs p10 , it costs more and it lacks cat6.and CDMA2000. X10 is old and on it’s way out, P10 is new and will serve the segment for a while.
- Karly Johnston
  February 1, 2016
  CES already happened and no announcement, every month we wait and no announcement. It is getting long in the tooth now.
- Karly Johnston
  February 1, 2016
  SD650 has better gpu than X20, SD652 has better cpu and gpu. The P10 is slower than the X10. Read a benchmark or two. Do really care about CAT6? I doubt you have access to higher than CAT4. I have CAT9 capability, stuck on 4.
- realjjj
  February 1, 2016
  Why do you persist in spreading nonsense, do you get payed for it? You did the same a week or 2 ago in the note 3 pro article comments.
  For the 5th time ,stop spreading BS.
  x20 is well above SD65x, any drunk monkey knows that.
  p10 yes it is a bit slower than the x10 and has lesser encoder/decoder but has many advantages too and at this point those advantages make it the better option. You won’t see new phones launched with the x10 , it would simply be moronic to do so and the vast majority will chose the P10.
- balcobomber25
  February 1, 2016
  CES isn’t focused on phones, especially phones coming from China. The only major Chinese company that was at CES was Huaweii and they make their own chips (Kirin). MWC is the biggest smartphone event of the year, most companies wait for MWC to make their announcements.
- Karly Johnston
  February 1, 2016
  CES was the launch of the first 820 by LeTV. It doesn’t get any bigger than that in 2016.
- balcobomber25
  February 1, 2016
  MWC is the biggest event for smartphones every year. LeTV and Huaweii were at CES because they wanted to capture the American audience. All of the top phones for 2016 will be announced at MWC though. It it like that every year.

Roberto Tomás
January 29, 2016
why is the P series ahead of the X series? I guess they don’t mess around for mid-range phones.
I mean the X20 is before the P20, but it is a 20nm process. The X-series 16nm is late this year or early next year.
It’s like .. just imagine if nvidia launched the Pascal gpu with the upgrade of the GTX960 instead of a Titan. 🙂
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  In GPU it actually makes sense to start with a small die because of yields but GPUs are a repetitive structure , designing different sizes is a a lot easier and cheaper. Often GPU makers do start with small dies because of yield and to address the laptop market first. Starting with a huge die on a new process is rather crazy. A big but not huge die makes sense too in some occasions to address a high margins segment with a die size that still allows for reasonable yields. AMD is likely to have a small die first this year and soon after a big but not huge die. In PC CPUs you often see Intel pushing Core M and dual cores for laptop first because of the size but in their case the difference between high end and low end is just in clocks, number of cores and GPU size , in mobile a lot more things are different, to save on cost. Qualcomm can’t just dial down a SD820 , cut it in half and sell it for 10$ instead of 50.intel can do that kind of thing since most of the chip is cores, GPU and cache.In mobile the GPU and the CPU are actually a small fraction of the chip.
- Karly Johnston
  January 30, 2016
  The X series is replaced by P. There will be no X20.

Roberto Tomás
January 29, 2016
why is the P series ahead of the X series? I guess they don’t mess around for mid-range phones.
I mean the X20 is before the P20, but it is a 20nm process. The X-series 16nm is late this year or early next year.
It’s like .. just imagine if nvidia launched the Pascal gpu with the upgrade of the GTX960 instead of a Titan. 🙂
- realjjj
  January 29, 2016
  In GPU it actually makes sense to start with a small die because of yields but GPUs are a repetitive structure , designing different sizes is a a lot easier and cheaper. Often GPU makers do start with small dies because of yield and to address the laptop market first. Starting with a huge die on a new process is rather crazy. A big but not huge die makes sense too in some occasions to address a high margins segment with a die size that still allows for reasonable yields. AMD is likely to have a small die first this year and soon after a big but not huge die. In PC CPUs you often see Intel pushing Core M and dual cores for laptop first because of the size but in their case the difference between high end and low end is just in clocks, number of cores and GPU size , in mobile a lot more things are different, to save on cost. Qualcomm can’t just dial down a SD820 , cut it in half and sell it for 10$ instead of 50.intel can do that kind of thing since most of the chip is cores, GPU and cache.In mobile the GPU and the CPU are actually a small fraction of the chip.
- Karly Johnston
  January 31, 2016
  The X series is replaced by P. There will be no X20.
JNG_RULZ
January 31, 2016
Okay, here is my 2 cents for this…
I believe that it’s the same tri-cluster config as the x20 (2 A72 8 A53)
but with the ff…
16nm, LPDDR4, MaliT860 MP4 (or PowerVR GT7400)…
Well…Just Saying BTW’s
- JNG_RULZ
  February 1, 2016
  Oh oh…it seems like the P20 is…an 8 core A53 and runs about up to 2.3GHz
  but the others are confirm (16nm, LPDDR4, MaliT860 MP4)

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