Mediatek roadmap confirms 16nm Helio P20


mediatek helio x20

This partial roadmap from Mediatek shows us a couple of new processors to look forward to for the coming year.

Starting with Q1 Mediatek are set to release the Helio X20 chipset. This processor is the much anticipated successor to the Helio X10 sporting 10 cores built in to a tri-cluster (full Mediatek Helio X20 details here). The roadmap also lets us know the X20 can handle up to 25 mega-pixel camera’s, 4K video, Cat 6 LTE and 2560 x 1600 displays.

Coming in Q2 are the MT6750 and MT6737. these processor are destined for entry-level phones. The MT6750 runs at up to 1.5Ghz, with 16 mega-pixel sensor and FHD displays while the MT6737 runs at 1.3Ghz (1.5 in T format) and runs 13 mega-pixel cameras and lower resolution panels. More details here, along with the MT6738 which launches in Q3.

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What’s really surprising to see is the Helio P20, and the fact the specs listed here meet the rumoured details we posted last week.

mediatek 2016 roadmap

The Mediatek Helio P20 is confirmed to have a 16nm architecture just as we posted last week. the Processor will power up to FHD 1920 x 1080 panels, offer 24 mega-pixel camera support plus Cat 6 LTE.

The roadmap doesn’t detail Q4 of 2016 but we assume this is when we can expect the Mediatek Helio X30 to arrive on the scene.

What are your thoughts on Mediatek’s plans for 2016?

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70 Comments

  1. realjjj
    February 1, 2016

    Mediatek confirmed that P20 exists in their results call, due in the second half of this year.
    They also said that customers (phone makers) will ship X20 this quarter.
    X30 seems to be 2017 and that begs the question, have they canceled it on 16FF+ and are they going with 10nm?
    here from min 19 http://wms.gridow.com/ir/mediatek/en/mediatek_2015Q4_en.html

    • balcobomber25
      February 1, 2016

      Weren’t you telling us the other day how the P20 would never happen with 16nm?

      • realjjj
        February 2, 2016

        Yes i was because there was no way in hell they would go with A53 cores. It makes no sense to make a 10$ SoC on 16nm this early and it doesn’t even qualify anymore for the P series. Yet ,they apparently are doing that and they’ll get hurt, unless they can afford to sell the thing at 10$. If they can afford such a low price, it’s great and will make for some nice cheap phones.ofc they still have a gap in their roadmap, they need to counter budget A72 based SoCs . They could be thinking to do so with X20 but that’s not ideal.
        This P20 is kind blah all around, except power. Mild increase in perf, nobody is gonna get excited about it. If they had much higher clocks, maybe but even then… Power wise it should be nice so lets hope they can sell it really cheap, otherwise it is a huge mistake.

        When they went with 8 cores for the first time, they made an investment, spending on the extra cores and that allowed them to reach a higher ASP and gain share.Here they failed to take the same risk and what’s worse is that SD650 already showed them what’s coming and that they had to go with some big cores.

        They made a very odd move that nobody expected and that yet to make much sense to anyone.

        • coolgreek
          February 2, 2016

          Exactly what i’m saying at all my posts for this.
          “Yet ,they apparently are doing that and they’ll get hurt” +1, they’ll get heart real bad.
          “they still have a gap in their roadmap” +1 (i will also add Huge to that gap word).
          Come one Mediatek, WAKE UP, you’re loosing the game here!

          • realjjj
            February 2, 2016

            in one of comments here i mention the LTE and non-LTE volumes in 2015 for MTK as well a Spreadtrum. If you factor that in, they won’t get hurt that much this year, 2017 could be worse, we’ll see what others have prepared.
            Also, X20 is on 20nm, somewhat small GPU, just DDR3, so it’s not that costly and they likely can price it above but close enough to the SD652.
            This P20 could work if it’s small and they can sell it cheap. Margins here are pretty low anyway.

  2. realjjj
    February 1, 2016

    Mediatek confirmed that P20 exists in their results call and is due in the second half of this year.
    They also said that customers (phone makers) will ship X20 this quarter.
    X30 seems to be 2017 and that begs the question, have they canceled it on 16FF+ and are they going with 10nm?
    here from min 19 http://wms.gridow.com/ir/mediatek/en/mediatek_2015Q4_en.html

    But they are total morons if this roadmap is real and P20 is 8xA53 , they’ll lose the midrange in a big way if they don’t drop some big cores in there. With 8xA53 at 2.3Ghz the P20 would fit in 100$ and bellow phones. Hard to understand why go there on 16ff before doing it for a SoC at 1.5-2x the price. Maybe they are counting on X20 dropping in price enough to cover that market by then.
    Guess it’s possible that Spreadtrum’s 16ff SoC is 8xA53 and then MTK was forced to do the P20 but even then, matching them instead of crushing them is not ideal.
    They really need some more big cores on that roadmap ,they can’t compete in the midrange otherwise anymore.

    • balcobomber25
      February 1, 2016

      Weren’t you telling us the other day how the P20 would never happen with 16nm?

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      Yes i was because there was no way in hell they would go with A53 cores. It makes no sense to make a 10$ SoC on 16nm this early and it doesn’t even qualify anymore for the P series. Yet ,they apparently are doing that and they’ll get hurt, unless they can afford to sell the thing at 10$. If they can afford such a low price, it’s great and will make for some nice cheap phones.ofc they still have a gap in their roadmap, they need to counter budget A72 based SoCs . They could be thinking to do so with X20 but that’s not ideal.
      This P20 is kinda blah all around, except power. Mild increase in perf, nobody is gonna get excited about it. If they had much higher clocks, maybe but even then… Power wise it should be nice so lets hope they can sell it really cheap, otherwise it is a huge mistake.

      When they went with 8 cores for the first time, they made an investment, spending on the extra cores and that allowed them to reach a higher ASP and gain share.Here they failed to take the same risk and what’s worse is that SD650 already showed them what’s coming and that they had to go with some big cores.

      They made a very odd move that nobody expected and that is yet to make much sense to anyone.

    • coolgreek
      February 2, 2016

      Exactly what i’m saying at all my posts for this.
      “Yet ,they apparently are doing that and they’ll get hurt” +1, they’ll get heart real bad.
      “they still have a gap in their roadmap” +1 (i will also add Huge to that gap word).
      Come one Mediatek, WAKE UP, you’re loosing the game here!

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      in one of my comments here i mention the LTE and non-LTE volumes in 2015 for MTK as well a Spreadtrum. If you factor that in, they won’t get hurt that much this year, 2017 could be worse, we’ll see what others have prepared.
      Also, X20 is on 20nm, somewhat small GPU, just DDR3, so it’s not that costly and they likely can price it above but close enough to the SD652.
      This P20 could work if it’s small and they can sell it cheap. Margins here are pretty low anyway.

  3. JNG_RULZ
    February 2, 2016

    Hmmm…I hear that X30 will had a delay to early 2017 cuz of 10nm….or they wait something like…UH…”ARTEMIS” or something….

    Now what happened to that X22 thing huh…?

    • Abdou Azzedine (A2Z)
      February 2, 2016

      U mean ‘ares’ next gen arm cores , I think 2017 is the year of powerfull soc’s ( sd830 with improved cryo may b adreno 630 . Exynos 9 octa with second gen mongoose costume cores coupled with the new gpu MIMIR mp16 “roughly onpar with gtx 760” . Kirin 960 . Helio x30 . Nuclun 3? ) all built on 10 nm somsung/gf or tsmc

  4. coolgreek
    February 2, 2016

    For me Mediatek (MTK) is loosing (big time) the soc battle this year.
    Helio x10 was good but since then Qualcomm have significantly upgraded their soc line with new more powerfull soc’s. For example Snapdragon 650 is way better than Helio x10 and a little behind Helio X20, Which Helio X20 will be significantly slower than SD 652 and even more to the new qualcomm flagship SD 820.
    Helio X30 will be release one year from now so the snapdragon 820 will have no serious competition from MTK till then.
    Helio x20 will go to midrange phones (instead of flagship) with snapdragon 652 as direct competitor, the helio p10 will go to cheaper midrange line (snapdragon 650 competitor). They are loosing all the battles there.
    And some more to (would like to be flagship) Helio x20. Mali T880mp4 (4 cores) is good (not Adreno 530 good, not even adreno 510 i’d say, but still, good). And it’s same GPU the new Exynos 8890 will have too. But with mp12 configuration (12 cores instead of 4)!!!

    CONCLUSION:
    I just dont get it. Mediatek have a huge market that supports them (China), have created fans around the world (i was one of them till recently, have owned some MTK powered phones and loved them), and they just do… well, what they are doing! They are just way behind the competition this time and they might pay that.

    PS: when i reffer to performance i mean benchmarks. I know benchmarks dont say the full truth but still, they “messure” performance and performance is something everyone looks out for.

    PS2: forgive my bad English at some points, trying my best!

    • Abdou Azzedine (A2Z)
      February 2, 2016

      Are u serious x20 will be slower than sd 652 ? Dont forget sd652 is still on 28 nm process and its quad cortex A72 are just 1.8 ghz

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      SD652 is bellow x20. With X20 you got 40% higher clocks at 2.5Ghz and an extra gain due to all else. Plus they got the process advantage in LTE,power and others. They got more A63s at higher clocks and ofc SD652 will throttle to some degree.
      P10 competes and beats SD617 and bellow but all of those will get hurt to a certain degree by SD650.
      The only problem for now is SD650 harming, indirectly, P10.
      The even bigger problem is Spreadtrum’s 8 cores on 16ff and the P20 suggest that the Spreadtrum is 8xA53. Last year Mediatek shipped close to 400 million smartphone SoCs and only over 150 million were LTE. That means that some 250 million were, pretty much all , 3G and 2G with A7 cores. So Spreadtrum moving slightly up was likely seen as the bigger threat.They should have used a couple of big core instead of 8xa53 and counter both threats in 1 shot but….

      • coolgreek
        February 2, 2016

        As Already mentioned SD652 (antutu at around 100.000 vs the 86000 of the Helio X20) is much stronger than Helio X20. For me Helio x20 is against SD652 and Helio P10 is against SD650. Instead this time they are weak performers against their competitors. And my complains is that i want them better performers. I want mediatek socs to be equal to their rivals. Thats why they are still here. Every time they did just that. Competitive socs at lower prices.
        But qualcomm has taken the threat seriously and looks out to trounce the MTK line up. Performance wise they have done it (unfortunately). Mediatek should seriously think of changing their plans and get competitive again soon enough or their loose much of the sales chart. And i do not like that because i like Mediatek…

        • realjjj
          February 2, 2016

          lol Antutu, don’t embarrass yourself by mentioning that thing. I hate saying anything about it , as opposed to fully ignoring it, but that scores, if accurate, are likely at 1440p for the x20 vs 1080p and that makes a huge diff in this crappiest benchmark ever made.
          As i said the P10 is not a direct competitor for SD650, it’s a mater of price, it competes with SD617 and less.
          SD65x and X20 have no direct competitors , each are at diff price bands.
          SD652 vs X20 – X20 wins by far in CPU both single threaded and multi threaded while the GPUs are in the same league and will depend on how much each throttles. In all else the X20 has ,at least, the process advantage. In geekbench terms if you want, in FP and integer at 2.5GHz the X20 gets about 50% higher score while in memory it’s almost even as expected since both are 2×32 DDR3.
          So X20’s 2 cores are like 3 in the Sd652 but getting that in just 2 threads is better. Then 4xA53 at 2GHz are extra for the X20.
          Overheating, no data for it but the SD652 does a bit. Samsung in the A9 seems to be using it bellow 1.8GHz. For x20, we’lls ee if they have heat problems, if they can do at least 2.3Ghz, it’s still ok.
          Yes the 650 will harm P10 and 617, 615 at a much higher price and X20 can put pressure from above on SD652 and even 650. And yes MTK should add some big cores on this roadmap.
          And i don’t care about brands, i do want competition and even called them total morons for going 8xA53 in a comment here. Ofc if they can sell the P20 really cheap, morons is way too harsh and the chip will be great. But if they expect to sell the P20 at 15-20$, good luck with that….

          • Vlada
            February 2, 2016

            AnTuTu doesn’t take display resolution into account anymore. The result will be equal no matter what resolution your display has.

            But they have put in recent version a much higher rating to GPU. So CPU performance is only a very small portion of the overall score. GPU is the most important part.

            And we all know that MediaTek has good CPU but very weak GPU compared to Qualcomm. I’m not even talking about Apple which has absolutely no competition in GPU performance.

            • realjjj
              February 2, 2016

              Got any proof that they don’t count on screen res? I am actually asking for proof,not being an ass.
              As for Qualcomm GPU in SD820, remains to be seen how it throttles but even if it goes to 50% , it’s not that bad lol. Apple is just using a very large one but that’s not viable for X20 since it’s not aimed at the very high end vs the 820. vs SD65x the x20 GPU should be in the same league,
              We’ll see what they do with x30, especially if it’s on 10nm.

            • Vlada
              February 2, 2016

              Sorry, no. I just heard it that since V6 it shouldn’t matter. But you are right that they do both on- and off-screen tests. So maybe the information was not really correct.

              I think they were paid by Apple to increase their score. Apple is very good in GPU and single-thread. That is what they now have as the highest priority.

            • realjjj
              February 2, 2016

              Quickly looked into it and seems they do both on screen and off screen now so it’s not really off screen.
              On the CPU side they seem to favor single threaded perf more now and that’s a bit odd. If anything, with time, apps would get better at using more cores so one would expect the change to go in the opposite direction.
              In UX score they made some changes too that seem to favor SD820 but without proper details it’s hard to judge the changes in the UI score.

  5. Guest
    February 2, 2016

    Hmmm…I hear that X30 will had a delay to early 2017 cuz of 10nm….or they wait something like…UH…”ARTEMIS” or something….

    Now what happened to that X22 thing huh…?

    • ExynosOcta
      February 2, 2016

      U mean ‘ares’ next gen arm cores , I think 2017 is the year of powerfull soc’s ( sd830 with improved cryo may b adreno 630 . Exynos 9 octa with second gen mongoose costume cores coupled with the new gpu MIMIR mp16 “roughly onpar with gtx 760” . Kirin 960 . Helio x30 . Nuclun 3? ) all built on 10 nm somsung/gf or tsmc

  6. Steven Fox
    February 2, 2016

    It`s not all just benchmarks you know, I actuall prefer Kirin 950 and X20 to SD820 devices that will cost nearly twice as much, but won`t deliver actually twice the power and both(950 and X20)will offer better battery life(smaller and more power efficient CPU/GPU cores).
    Benchmarks are a cool thing to show of, but unlike PC where gaming and 3D work are things that you actually do, on mobiles it`s more like handling your social activities and shooting pictures rather than anything else(that`s why specs like 4GB of RAM and QHD/4K displays are pretty much useless)

    • coolgreek
      February 2, 2016

      I know and i do agree with most you said. Benchmarks are not the most important thing. I still remember the overheating issues on SD810 making it slower (throttling) every time you run a benchmark.

      However i am not sure that the Helio x20 will have a better battery life in comparison. SD 820 has 4 cores all custom made (2x slower for most situations and 2x for heavy loading) that can be better to existing arm cores used on X20. Let’s not forget X20 has 10 cores and according to some news it has overheating issues (see latest post on Xiaomi, Meizu and Lenovo scrapping the Helio X20?).
      Also the competition is much stronger this time around (SD 650 maybe new but it’s already said it’s better than Helio X10 on battery consumption although being better on benchmarks).

      I like competition, i like what mediatek have offered all this time but i just feel that this time around they are not appearing as what they should be in the competition. I liked MT6752 trouncing all the midrange competition a year ago and never liked that they replaced this soc with the much slower 6753. I think they can do better and that they should. I want them around as strong as ever and every smartphone user out there should too.

      • realjjj
        February 2, 2016

        You are likely to be hugely overestimating the perf for Qualcomm’s new cores. All evidence so far suggests they are weaker than A72. Power wise ,we’ll see. They clock 2 cores lower and those should be at about half the power of the high clocked ones so it’s like having only 3 cores at max clocks.That suggests that they aren’t all that good on power either. We’ll have to see what’s what when devices ship but for now Kryo seems a bit weak. Ofc that doesn’t make it bad, just not what you are suggesting.
        X20 overheating, anything is possible on 20nm lol, we’ll see. If they can at least clock it at 2.3GHz, it wouldn’t be bad.
        On X10 they push the cores to high clocks and yeah battery is not great but X10 is on it’s way out,no point in factoring it anymore. P10 makes more sense and power should be good there.
        X20 vs SD20 battery life, too early to say and might depend on usage. But ofc 820 is the higher performing one, just like x20 ,excluding any problems, is better than the SD65x. P10 is nice enough but at a higher price, the SD650 will hurt it and MTK will need to counter that with the X20 or something new with big cores.
        Kirin is great because it doesn’t throttle and you get what it’s being advertised. Has it’s kinks and it’s more of a lower high end but should be great if they use it in well priced devices.

        • coolgreek
          February 2, 2016

          Unfortunately the new cores of the SD820 are stronger than the competition (A72 for example). That’s what i’ve read so far. Power wise we’ll see but i’m not so optimistic about Helio X20 battery performance either.
          Helio P10 is a direct competitor (to my eyes) to SD650. See the prices of the new Helio P10 phones (still at presale) vs the price of the new Xiaomi redmi note 3 pro (SD650) that is already at stock on many shops. And the SD652 is going against the Helio X20. The new SD650 and SD652 are here to really heart the MTK soc line and undoubtedly they can. It’s an area Qualcomm had left with no real competition all those years and it’s why the Mediatek has grown us much. They took all the mid-high pie for themselves. But. really, will they be able to do that this time around? No, they have some serious competition (with better performance).

          MTK should be better than that and thats why i’m complaining. Because i do not like it!

          • realjjj
            February 2, 2016

            X20 is not a competitor for SD820.
            A72 being weaker is something that nothing at all has suggested so far, nothing at all.Pls do show anything at all supporting that claim.
            P10 vs SD650 : “in your eyes ” makes no sense at all. what the hell is that? In my eyes a 50k $ car is a competitor for a 30k$ car. Can i say that and not be crazy? The other way around can work, if you have a cheaper product that beats a much costlier product but that’s not the case.

            on SD652 you are just stuck on your opinion and are disregarding logic.
            The Note 3 win is the way SD650 hurts P10 but indirectly. The phone maker makes an extra effort and invests in a better SoC.But that extra effort needs to be made.It relegates the P10 to a lower league but that doesn’t make it a direct competitor. The x20 can do the same to the SD652,if it actually works lol.

            • coolgreek
              February 2, 2016

              Ok, no reason to be arguing here.
              It’s just the way i see the soc competition. You could be right and i have no problem with that. Hopefully Mediatek can stand better than what i expect (my expectations are low because of the lower performance and the huge gap from mid-high range to flagship phones the Mediatek is leaving).

              Price wise i expect the Helio X20 to cost lower than SD 650. Which will be a great price for that soc. That doesn’t mean though that it has not left a huge gap to SD652 and SD820 socs to sell.
              And for the cars example: Mtk engineered cars will be cheaper and have good performance. Yes. but soc prices will be so low that i think that even small chineze phone makers will be able to have access to cheap phones with SD652 on board.

            • realjjj
              February 2, 2016

              lol at your SD820 argument.
              sorry m8 but you need to learn a lot more
              – Lets start with the basics, diff cores diff clocks each can reach in a phone TDP. or if you want at same per core power.
              – Geekbench shows the clocks of the smaller cores, 1.59 for the 2 lower clocked Kryo and 1.4GHz for the 3rd cluster in x20
              – In Geekbench don’t look at total, look at each 3 segments: integer, FP and memory. Integer and FP quantify the core if you want while the memory perf is less relevant since not all apps are equally memory heavy. When you compare cores you can somewhat discard the memory score.

              So if we take A72 vs Kryo on a similar process
              We assume that A72 clocks to 2.5Ghz while Kryo goes to 2.2Ghz in the same power. That’s not certain, on one hand Kryo can only use the equivalent of 3 cores at full clocks in the targeted TDP)they clock 2 of the 4 lower) while A72 might be able to do a bit better with a good implementation.Huawei manages to clock 4 cores at 2.3Ghz with almost no throttling at all but Huawei is not the best at making chips, they still lack experience. We also have no clue if SD820 throttles at all. So, since at this stage we can’t do much better than this, we assume power is equal for Kryo at 2.2Ghz and A72 at 2.5Ghz.
              In this case, in Geekbench single threaded Kryo scores about 2.1k in FP and integer. The A72 at 2.5Ghz in the Helio x20 (yes it is on 20nm and because of it just 2 cores but it is the only available result at 2.5Ghz with the newer core revision). scores 2.4k in integer and just under 2k in FP so slightly behind in FP and well ahead in Integer. SD820 does get a crazy high score in memory but that’s less about the core.
              In future A72 implementations with DDR4 support we should see better memory scores as well as a small positive impact (from the extra memory perf) on the FP and integer score.
              So, assuming equal per core power , in Geekbench A72 wins
              Now, geekbench is just 1 CPU benchmark and not everybody favor it. Also some prefer the old school thinking that encryption scores should be excluded from the integer score but imo encryption is gaining importance nowadays and should be factored in, at least to some degree. http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5062319?baseline=4630896

              For other CPU related benchmarks, it’s a bit difficult, we kinda lack data. Anandtech looked at SD820 in SPECInt but not with the right compiler so it’s rather pointless http://www.anandtech.com/show/9837/snapdragon-820-preview/2
              So, all evidence, so far,points to Kryo not beating A72.

            • coolgreek
              February 3, 2016

              “Edit:if it helps you in any way SD652 vs x20 http://browser.primatelabs.com…”

              The link above is NOT Helio x20 vs SD652 but unforunately it’s Helio x20 vs SD617 (and ofcourse SD617 is much less powered).
              http://phoneradar.com/gadgets/phones/tcl/6070y/
              (link of the tested phone TCL 6070y specs)
              I’ve seen no real SD652 benchmarkes except a page that mentions it scores about 73000 at Antutu (which is wrong as the underpowered SD650 scores 76000). But CPU wise i expect it to be much more powerful than SD650 and slightly better than Helio X20 (which Helio X20 will be “CPU wise” quite better than SD650).

              About the Kryo cores we’ll see… So far we’ve only estimating but we’ll certainly know in a couple of weeks. I have no problems with A72 cores to be better, actually i am hoping that!

            • realjjj
              February 3, 2016

              lol, i assure you , it is SD652 in the link provided , just with the wrong number http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/4557852?baseline=4630896
              SD617 scores almost half that in single threaded.
              Here ,vs the Galaxy A9 where it seems they downclock it a bit http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5114376?baseline=4630896
              x20 vs the SD650 (same perf in single core) http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5131062?baseline=4630896
              and here the SD617 http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5129467?baseline=4630896

              editing to add a bit more info

            • realjjj
              February 2, 2016

              If you want to, you can compare Kirin with the SD820 preview http://www.anandtech.com/show/9837/snapdragon-820-preview/3
              http://www.anandtech.com/show/9878/the-huawei-mate-8-review/4

              With a few major notes. Kirin is at just 2.3GHz and it’s results are a bit weak for the clocks, the device has slow NAND and others are likely to do better.
              SD820 in that test is unlikely to be running the shipping software.
              I hate the Java benchmarks, if you look at SD820 stock browser vs Chrome , the differences are huge so i don’t see them as relevant benchmarks.
              Some of the system wide benchmarks there are not just CPU bound,some include GPU and others. So all in all these benchmarks don’t help that much in finding the winner but it is some extra data.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      Web browsing is likely the most used function and it’s also one of the heaviest. Sure software and connectivity have a huge impact there. But people do do crazy things you wouldn’t expect on mobile, like video editing. Gaming is important to a very loud and uninformed niche.

      • Steven Fox
        February 2, 2016

        There isn`t a game out that can push the 880MP4 at 1080p to stutter, and Kirin 950 will never, ever throttle or get hot, too bad that the Mate 8 costs insanely high(well, still better than the S6 Edge)
        I`m waiting for the Honor 8.

        • realjjj
          February 2, 2016

          The gaming part is maybe true , hard to test every game lol.It’s fine for 1080p but min FPS might drop bellow 30FPS in some games.
          Kirin is fine, not great but fine and i do hope too that they use it in cheaper devices, would be a waste not to.

  7. coolgreek
    February 2, 2016

    For me Mediatek (MTK) is loosing (big time) the soc battle this year.
    Helio x10 was good but since then Qualcomm have significantly upgraded their soc line with new more powerfull soc’s. For example Snapdragon 650 is way better than Helio x10 and a little behind Helio X20, Which Helio X20 will be significantly slower than SD 652 and even more to the new qualcomm flagship SD 820.
    Helio X30 will be release one year from now so the snapdragon 820 will have no serious competition from MTK till then.
    Helio x20 will go to midrange phones (instead of flagship) with snapdragon 652 as direct competitor, the helio p10 will go to cheaper midrange line (snapdragon 650 competitor). They are loosing all the battles there.
    And some more to (would like to be flagship) Helio x20. Mali T880mp4 (4 cores) is good (not Adreno 530 good, not even adreno 510 i’d say, but still, good). And it’s same GPU the new Exynos 8890 will have too. But with mp12 configuration (12 cores instead of 4)!!!

    CONCLUSION:
    I just dont get it. Mediatek have a huge market that supports them (China), have created fans around the world (i was one of them till recently, have owned some MTK powered phones and loved them), and they just do… well, what they are doing! They are just way behind the competition this time and they might pay that.

    PS: when i reffer to performance i mean benchmarks. I know benchmarks dont say the full truth but still, they “messure” performance and performance is something everyone looks out for.

    PS2: forgive my bad English at some points, trying my best!

    • ExynosOcta
      February 2, 2016

      Are u serious x20 will be slower than sd 652 ? Dont forget sd652 is still on 28 nm process and its quad cortex A72 are just 1.8 ghz

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      SD652 is bellow x20. With X20 you got 40% higher clocks at 2.5Ghz and an extra gain due to all else. Plus they got the process advantage in LTE,power and others. They got more A63s at higher clocks and ofc SD652 will throttle to some degree.
      P10 competes and beats SD617 and bellow but all of those will get hurt to a certain degree by SD650.
      The only problem for now is SD650 harming, indirectly, P10.
      The even bigger problem is Spreadtrum’s 8 cores on 16ff and the P20 suggest that the Spreadtrum is 8xA53. Last year Mediatek shipped close to 400 million smartphone SoCs and only over 150 million were LTE. That means that some 250 million were, pretty much all , 3G and 2G with A7 cores. So Spreadtrum moving slightly up was likely seen as the bigger threat.They should have used a couple of big core instead of 8xa53 and counter both threats in 1 shot but….
      They could have solved the SD650 and Spreadtrum problem with same die, 2 SKUs at diff clocks.

    • coolgreek
      February 2, 2016

      As Already mentioned SD652 (antutu at around 100.000 vs the 86000 of the Helio X20) is much stronger than Helio X20. For me Helio x20 is against SD652 and Helio P10 is against SD650. Instead this time they are weak performers against their competitors. And my complains is that i want them better performers. I want mediatek socs to be equal to their rivals. Thats why they are still here. Every time they did just that. Competitive socs at lower prices.
      But qualcomm has taken the threat seriously and looks out to trounce the MTK line up. Performance wise they have done it (unfortunately). Mediatek should seriously think of changing their plans and get competitive again soon enough or their loose much of the sales chart. And i do not like that because i like Mediatek…

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      lol Antutu, don’t embarrass yourself by mentioning that thing. I hate saying anything about it , as opposed to fully ignoring it, but that scores, if accurate, are likely at 1440p for the x20 vs 1080p and that makes a huge diff in this crappiest benchmark ever made.
      As i said the P10 is not a direct competitor for SD650, it’s a mater of price, it competes with SD617 and less.
      SD65x and X20 have no direct competitors , each are at diff price bands.
      SD652 vs X20 – X20 wins by far in CPU both single threaded and multi threaded while the GPUs are in the same league and will depend on how much each throttles. In all else the X20 has ,at least, the process advantage. In geekbench terms if you want, in FP and integer at 2.5GHz the X20 gets about 50% higher score while in memory it’s almost even as expected since both are 2×32 DDR3.
      So X20’s 2 cores are like 3 in the Sd652 but getting that in just 2 threads is better. Then 4xA53 at 2GHz are extra for the X20.
      Overheating, no data for it but the SD652 does a bit. Samsung in the A9 seems to be using it bellow 1.8GHz. For x20, we’lls ee if they have heat problems, if they can do at least 2.3Ghz, it’s still ok.
      Yes the 650 will harm P10 and 617, 615 at a much higher price and X20 can put pressure from above on SD652 and even 650. And yes MTK should add some big cores on this roadmap.
      And i don’t care about brands, i do want competition and even called them total morons for going 8xA53 in a comment here. Ofc if they can sell the P20 really cheap, morons is way too harsh and the chip will be great. But if they expect to sell the P20 at 15-20$, good luck with that….

    • Vlada
      February 2, 2016

      AnTuTu doesn’t take display resolution into account anymore. The result will be equal no matter what resolution your display has.

      But they have put in recent version a much higher rating to GPU. So CPU performance is only a very small portion of the overall score. GPU is the most important part.

      And we all know that MediaTek has good CPU but very weak GPU compared to Qualcomm. I’m not even talking about Apple which has absolutely no competition in GPU performance.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      Got any proof that they don’t count on screen res? I am actually asking for proof,not being an ass.
      As for Qualcomm GPU in SD820, remains to be seen how it throttles but even if it goes to 50% , it’s not that bad lol. Apple is just using a very large one but that’s not viable for X20 since it’s not aimed at the very high end vs the 820. vs SD65x the x20 GPU should be in the same league, heat will make the difference in actual gaming.
      We’ll see what they do with x30, especially if it’s on 10nm.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      Quickly looked into it and seems they do both on screen and off screen now so it’s not really off screen.
      On the CPU side they seem to favor single threaded perf more now and that’s a bit odd. If anything, with time, apps would get better at using more cores so one would expect the change to go in the opposite direction.
      In UX score they made some changes too that seem to favor SD820 but without proper details it’s hard to judge the changes in the UI score.

    • Vlada
      February 2, 2016

      Sorry, no. I just heard it that since V6 it shouldn’t matter. But you are right that they do both on- and off-screen tests. So maybe the information was not really correct.

      I think they were paid by Apple to increase their score. Apple is very good in GPU and single-thread. That is what they now have as the highest priority.

  8. Steven Fox
    February 2, 2016

    It`s not all just benchmarks you know, I actuall prefer Kirin 950 and X20 to SD820 devices that will cost nearly twice as much, but won`t deliver actually twice the power and both(950 and X20)will offer better battery life(smaller and more power efficient CPU/GPU cores).
    Benchmarks are a cool thing to show of, but unlike PC where gaming and 3D work are things that you actually do, on mobiles it`s more like handling your social activities and shooting pictures rather than anything else(that`s why specs like 4GB of RAM and QHD/4K displays are pretty much useless)

    • coolgreek
      February 2, 2016

      I know and i do agree with most you said. Benchmarks are not the most important thing. I still remember the overheating issues on SD810 making it slower (throttling) every time you run a benchmark.

      However i am not sure that the Helio x20 will have a better battery life in comparison. SD 820 has 4 cores all custom made (2x slower for most situations and 2x for heavy loading) that can be better to existing arm cores used on X20. Let’s not forget X20 has 10 cores and according to some news it has overheating issues (see latest post on Xiaomi, Meizu and Lenovo scrapping the Helio X20?).
      Also the competition is much stronger this time around (SD 650 maybe new but it’s already said it’s better than Helio X10 on battery consumption although being better on benchmarks).

      I like competition, i like what mediatek have offered all this time but i just feel that this time around they are not appearing as what they should be in the competition. I liked MT6752 trouncing all the midrange competition a year ago and never liked that they replaced this soc with the much slower 6753. I think they can do better and that they should. I want them around as strong as ever and every smartphone user out there should too.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      Web browsing is likely the most used function and it’s also one of the heaviest. Sure software and connectivity have a huge impact there. But people do do crazy things you wouldn’t expect on mobile, like video editing. Gaming is important to a very loud and uninformed niche.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      You are likely to be hugely overestimating the perf for Qualcomm’s new cores. All evidence so far suggests they are weaker than A72. Power wise ,we’ll see. They clock 2 cores lower and those should be at about half the power of the high clocked ones so it’s like having only 3 cores at max clocks.That suggests that they aren’t all that good on power either. We’ll have to see what’s what when devices ship but for now Kryo seems a bit weak. Ofc that doesn’t make it bad, just not what you are suggesting.
      X20 overheating, anything is possible on 20nm lol, we’ll see. If they can at least clock it at 2.3GHz, it wouldn’t be bad.
      On X10 they push the cores to high clocks and yeah battery is not great but X10 is on it’s way out,no point in factoring it anymore. P10 makes more sense and power should be good there.
      X20 vs SD20 battery life, too early to say and might depend on usage. But ofc 820 is the higher performing one, just like x20 ,excluding any problems, is better than the SD65x. P10 is nice enough but at a higher price, the SD650 will hurt it and MTK will need to counter that with the X20 or something new with big cores.
      Kirin is great because it doesn’t throttle and you get what it’s being advertised. Has it’s kinks and it’s more of a lower high end but should be great if they use it in well priced devices.

    • coolgreek
      February 2, 2016

      Unfortunately the new cores of the SD820 are stronger than the competition (A72 for example). That’s what i’ve read so far. Power wise we’ll see but i’m not so optimistic about Helio X20 battery performance either.
      Helio P10 is a direct competitor (to my eyes) to SD650. See the prices of the new Helio P10 phones (still at presale) vs the price of the new Xiaomi redmi note 3 pro (SD650) that is already at stock on many shops. And the SD652 is going against the Helio X20. The new SD650 and SD652 are here to really heart the MTK soc line and undoubtedly they can. It’s an area Qualcomm had left with no real competition all those years and it’s why the Mediatek has grown us much. They took all the mid-high pie for themselves. But. really, will they be able to do that this time around? No, they have some serious competition (with better performance).

      MTK should be better than that and thats why i’m complaining. Because i do not like that the competition is stronger this time! Because that’s Mediatek fault. They really are not up to the competition this time. And they really should wake up soon enough…

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      X20 is not a competitor for SD820.
      A72 being weaker is something that nothing at all has suggested so far, nothing at all.Pls do show anything at all supporting that claim.
      P10 vs SD650 : “in your eyes ” makes no sense at all. what the hell is that? In my eyes a 50k $ car is a competitor for a 30k$ car. Can i say that and not be crazy? The other way around can work, if you have a cheaper product that beats a much costlier product but that’s not the case.

      on SD652 you are just stuck on your opinion and are disregarding logic.
      The Note 3 win is the way SD650 hurts P10 but indirectly. The phone maker makes an extra effort and invests in a better SoC.But that extra effort needs to be made.It relegates the P10 to a lower league but that doesn’t make it a direct competitor. The x20 can do the same to the SD652,if it actually works lol.

    • coolgreek
      February 2, 2016

      Ok, no reason to be arguing here.
      It’s just the way i see the soc competition. You could be right and i have no problem with that. Hopefully Mediatek can stand better than what i expect (my expectations are low because of the lower performance and the huge gap from mid-high range to flagship phones the Mediatek is leaving).

      Price wise i expect the Helio X20 to cost lower than SD 650. Which will be a great price for that soc. That doesn’t mean though that it has not left a huge gap to SD652 and SD820 socs to sell.
      And for the cars example: Mtk engineered cars will be cheaper and have good performance. Yes. but soc prices will be so low that i think that even small chineze phone makers will be able to have access to cheap phones with SD652 on board.

      About Sd820 cores:
      geekbench single core: 2282 (with cores at 1.59ghz)
      http://www.droid-life.com/2016/01/27/att-galaxy-s7-shows-up-at-geekbench-with-snapdragon-820/
      Helio x20 scores a bit lower but at 2.5ghz speed.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      lol at your SD820 argument.
      sorry m8 but you need to learn a lot more
      – Lets start with the basics, diff cores diff clocks each can reach in a phone TDP. or if you want at same per core power.
      – Geekbench shows the clocks of the smaller cores, 1.59 for the 2 lower clocked Kryo and 1.4GHz for the 3rd cluster in x20
      – In Geekbench don’t look at total, look at each 3 segments: integer, FP and memory. Integer and FP quantify the core if you want while the memory perf is less relevant since not all apps are equally memory heavy. When you compare cores you can somewhat discard the memory score.

      So if we take A72 vs Kryo on a similar process
      We assume that A72 clocks to 2.5Ghz while Kryo goes to 2.2Ghz in the same power. That’s not certain, on one hand Kryo can only use the equivalent of 3 cores at full clocks in the targeted TDP)they clock 2 of the 4 lower) while A72 might be able to do a bit better with a good implementation.Huawei manages to clock 4 cores at 2.3Ghz with almost no throttling at all but Huawei is not the best at making chips, they still lack experience. We also have no clue if SD820 throttles at all. So, since at this stage we can’t do much better than this, we assume power is equal for Kryo at 2.2Ghz and A72 at 2.5Ghz.
      In this case, in Geekbench single threaded Kryo scores about 2.1k in FP and integer. The A72 at 2.5Ghz in the Helio x20 (yes it is on 20nm and because of it just 2 cores but it is the only available result at 2.5Ghz with the newer core revision). scores 2.4k in integer and just under 2k in FP so slightly behind in FP and well ahead in Integer. SD820 does get a crazy high score in memory but that’s less about the core.
      In future A72 implementations with DDR4 support we should see better memory scores as well as a small positive impact (from the extra memory perf) on the FP and integer score.
      So, assuming equal per core power , in Geekbench A72 wins
      Now, geekbench is just 1 CPU benchmark and not everybody favor it. Also some prefer the old school thinking that encryption scores should be excluded from the integer score but imo encryption is gaining importance nowadays and should be factored in, at least to some degree. Note how the memory score distorts the total.http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5062319?baseline=4630896

      For other CPU related benchmarks, it’s a bit difficult, we kinda lack data. Anandtech looked at SD820 in SPECInt but not with the right compiler so it’s rather pointless http://www.anandtech.com/show/9837/snapdragon-820-preview/2
      So, all evidence, so far,points to Kryo not beating A72.

      Edit:if it helps you in any way SD652 vs x20 http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/4557852?baseline=4630896

    • Steven Fox
      February 2, 2016

      There isn`t a game out that can push the 880MP4 at 1080p to stutter, and Kirin 950 will never, ever throttle or get hot, too bad that the Mate 8 costs insanely high(well, still better than the S6 Edge)
      I`m waiting for the Honor 8.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      If you want to, you can compare Kirin with the SD820 preview http://www.anandtech.com/show/9837/snapdragon-820-preview/3
      http://www.anandtech.com/show/9878/the-huawei-mate-8-review/4

      With a few major notes. Kirin is at just 2.3GHz and it’s results are a bit weak for the clocks, the device has slow NAND and others are likely to do better.
      SD820 in that test is unlikely to be running the shipping software.
      I hate the Java benchmarks, if you look at SD820 stock browser vs Chrome , the differences are huge so i don’t see them as relevant benchmarks.
      Some of the system wide benchmarks there are not just CPU bound,some include GPU and others. So all in all these benchmarks don’t help that much in finding the winner but it is some extra data.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      The gaming part is maybe true , hard to test every game lol.It’s fine for 1080p but min FPS might drop bellow 30FPS in some games.
      Kirin is fine, not great but fine and i do hope too that they use it in cheaper devices, would be a waste not to.

    • coolgreek
      February 3, 2016

      “Edit:if it helps you in any way SD652 vs x20 http://browser.primatelabs.com…”

      The link above is NOT Helio x20 vs SD652 but unforunately it’s Helio x20 vs SD617 (and ofcourse SD617 is much less powered).
      http://phoneradar.com/gadgets/phones/tcl/6070y/
      (link of the tested phone TCL 6070y specs)
      I’ve seen no real SD652 benchmarkes except a page that mentions it scores about 73000 at Antutu (which is wrong as the underpowered SD650 scores 76000). But CPU wise i expect it to be much more powerful than SD650 and slightly better than Helio X20 (which Helio X20 will be “CPU wise” quite better than SD650).

      About the Kryo cores we’ll see… So far we’ve only estimating but we’ll certainly know in a couple of weeks. I have no problems with A72 cores to be better, actually i am hoping that!

    • realjjj
      February 3, 2016

      lol, i assure you , it is SD652 in the link provided , just with the wrong part number http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/4557852?baseline=4630896
      SD617 scores almost half that in single threaded.
      Here ,vs the Galaxy A9 where it seems they downclock SD652 a bit http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5114376?baseline=4630896
      x20 vs the SD650 (same perf in single core) http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5131062?baseline=4630896
      and here the SD617 http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/5129467?baseline=4630896

      in this text in geekbench ” ARM implementer 65 architecture 8 variant 0 part 3336 revision 0″
      Part 3336 means A72, part 3331 is A53, A57 is part 3335 while Kryo is 517 and Samsung’s core is 83. Sometimes it’s not identified properly but most times it is

      So in terms of single threaded perf:
      A53 would score 400-500 total at 1-1.2GHz depending on implementation and go up to 900-1000 at 2-2.2GHz
      A snapdragon 801 would score about 1k
      A galaxy S6 about 1.5k.
      The SD65x about 1.5k at 1.8GHz.
      SD820, and X20, i’ve detailed those in my previous post.

      SD652 is in the Galaxy A9 and there are benchmarks, SD650 is in the Redmi Note 3 Pro and again there are benchmarks. SD820 has a bunch of previews so there is some info.

      GPU SD652 vs OnePlus One with SD801 https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&did1=28460902&os1=Android&api1=gl&hwtype1=GPU&hwname1=Qualcomm+Adreno+%28TM%29+510&D2=OnePlus+One+%28A0001%29
      SD652 vs 650 https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfxgen&did1=28460902&os1=Android&api1=gl&hwtype1=GPU&hwname1=Qualcomm+Adreno+%28TM%29+510&D2=Xiaomi+Redmi+Note+3+%28Adreno+510%29

      Some Galaxy A9 benchmarks http://gsminsider.com/2016/01/samsung-galaxy-a9-snapdragon-652-benchmark-tests-antutu-pcmark-and-3dmark/

  9. Vlada
    February 2, 2016

    We have P10 in Q4 2015 but we won’t see it in many phones until Q2 2016. So this means we won’t see mnay X20 phones until Q3 2016 and P20 phones will start to appear in 2017? It seems that MediaTek has many problems with the high-end chipsets.

    I’m wondering why the adoption of X10 is so low. And now we hear that Xiaomi, HTC and Lenovo are scrapping X20 phones.

    I hope these rumors are not true and we will see nice MediaTek powered phones. Qualcomm needs a competition.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      X10 is on it’s way out, it’s old and shipped plenty, there is no slow adoption.
      P10 is already available and X20 they said phones with it will ship this quarter. P20 is due in the second half, x30 is more 2017.

      • Vlada
        February 3, 2016

        Which phones with P10 can I buy now? How many phones with X10 are there? 5? That is a fast adoption?

        I will believe that X20 phones will be released this quarter when I see it.

        • realjjj
          February 3, 2016

          With the X10 there are a bunch of very high volume models and as i said, X10 is not gonna see new design wins as P10 makes more sense.
          For P10, folks are waiting for MWC to launch,it’s normal. Lenovo is taking orders for their k5 Note ,a couple of Gionee phones leaked , a TCL, Elephone has at least 2 and a few other smallOEMs announced devices. But any SoC ramps like that. SD65x has 2 phones for now, Galaxy A9 launched in Dec and Redmi Note 3 Pro in Jan. You never see 100 models with 1 SoC launched in a month, although it might get close to that at MWC.
          As for X20, Mediatek just had it’s Q4 results call yesterday and they stated that X20 devices will ship this quarter, likely folks are waiting for MWC. You can check the recording of the call in English here ( relevant part about 1 minute from min 19) http://wms.gridow.com/ir/mediatek/en/mediatek_2015Q4_en.html

          • Vlada
            February 4, 2016

            I know there is a lot of phones with P10 announced. But non of them is in the market. I don’t think MWC is so important for Chinese manufacturers that all of them would be waiting for it. I do believe the chipset just isn’t ready yet.

            I do believe that many companies will announce X20 and P10 phones at MWC. But when will they actually get to market? For many companies it takes more then 3 months, many of them will never be released and some will be released after more then one year since announcing them (for example Asus Zenphone Zoom).

            • realjjj
              February 4, 2016

              In China nobody is launching anything now, it’s the holidays.

  10. Vlada
    February 2, 2016

    We have P10 in Q4 2015 but we won’t see it in many phones until Q2 2016. So this means we won’t see mnay X20 phones until Q3 2016 and P20 phones will start to appear in 2017? It seems that MediaTek has many problems with the high-end chipsets.

    I’m wondering why the adoption of X10 is so low. And now we hear that Xiaomi, HTC and Lenovo are scrapping X20 phones.

    I hope these rumors are not true and we will see nice MediaTek powered phones. Qualcomm needs a competition.

    • realjjj
      February 2, 2016

      X10 is on it’s way out, it’s old and shipped plenty, there is no slow adoption.
      P10 is already available and X20 they said phones with it will ship this quarter. P20 is due in the second half, x30 is more 2017.

    • Vlada
      February 3, 2016

      Which phones with P10 can I buy now? How many phones with X10 are there? 5? That is a fast adoption?

      I will believe that X20 phones will be released this quarter when I see it.

    • realjjj
      February 3, 2016

      With the X10 there are a bunch of very high volume models and as i said, X10 is not gonna see new design wins as P10 makes more sense.
      For P10, folks are waiting for MWC to launch,it’s normal. Lenovo is taking orders for their k5 Note ,a couple of Gionee phones leaked , a TCL, Elephone has at least 2 and a few other smallOEMs announced devices. But any SoC ramps like that. SD65x has 2 phones for now, Galaxy A9 launched in Dec and Redmi Note 3 Pro in Jan. You never see 100 models with 1 SoC launched in a month, although it might get close to that at MWC.
      As for X20, Mediatek just had it’s Q4 results call yesterday and they stated that X20 devices will ship this quarter, likely folks are waiting for MWC. You can check the recording of the call in English here ( relevant part about 1 minute from min 19) http://wms.gridow.com/ir/mediatek/en/mediatek_2015Q4_en.html

    • Vlada
      February 4, 2016

      I know there is a lot of phones with P10 announced. But non of them is in the market. I don’t think MWC is so important for Chinese manufacturers that all of them would be waiting for it. I do believe the chipset just isn’t ready yet.

      I do believe that many companies will announce X20 and P10 phones at MWC. But when will they actually get to market? For many companies it takes more then 3 months, many of them will never be released and some will be released after more then one year since announcing them (for example Asus Zenphone Zoom).

    • realjjj
      February 4, 2016

      In China nobody is launching anything now, it’s the holidays.