Mediatek have really pulled their finger out over the past year or so with some really solid chip launches, but it’s the Helio X30 that the company hopes will really take on the top guns.
The past 12 months has seen some really interesting chipsets from Mediatek. The MT6752 really kicked it all off being a solid performer at a good price. The MT6752 didn’t last long though as Mediatek pushed their Helio range out starting with the X10 (which powers LeTV, Meizu and Xiaomi phones) and followed by the Helio X20 (so far only seen in the Zopo Speed 8 and Doogee F7).
With the Helio X20 just showing up in phones, we’ve been watching Mediatek to hear news of their next chipset, and it hasn’t taken long before some of the potential details have been released.
COO of Mediatek, Zhu Shangzu, has been speaking highly of his company’s next flagship processor, and says that the X30 will be the chip that could topple premium SoC’s from rivals Qualcomm and Samsung.
Gizchina News of the week
Apparently the Mediatek Helio X30 will be another 10 core chipset this time built on a 16nm architecture. The 10 cores will be split between 2 x 1.0Ghz Cortex A53 cores, 2 x 1.5Ghz A53, after those cores are used the chip will go in to turbo mode switching to 2 x 2Ghz A72 cores and then a possible 4 x 2.5Ghz A72 cores.
What will really be interesting though is if Mediatek can do better on the graphical side of things with the Helio X30. Mediatek chips generally do well on the CPU side, but are largely let down in the graphics departments. Can Mediatek get a better balance next time around?
They really should be going for a Mali T880-MP8 as the minimum with possibility the PowerVR GT7600 as the preferred GPU of choice. I feel that a grave mistake MediaTek did which prevented a good SOC like the Helio X10 from being a great SOC was the use of the PowerVR GT6200 instead of the GT6430.
Correct
I actually have the X10 and I do believe it’s a great SOC. Yes I did test the GPU against a Snapdragon 801 and it only got half the score.
You know what though I don’t really give a crap. Yes I do understand that some people play games and need a good GPU but there are lots of others that don’t and those just need a GPU to handle the Android UI and a snappy CPU to make everything run smooth and fast.
I like what Mediatek is going and I don’t want to pay more for a better GPU. I’m pretty sure they’re putting in weak GPUs on purpose to keep the costs down and so far it seems to be working pretty well for them.
A bigger issue I see is that X20 is still MIA for some reason.
I’m typing this from my LeTV Le 1S which I just got in the mail this past week and I have to say it’s everyday performance is great. This phone is replacing the OnePlus One I purchased last February which has served me admirably, in addition I’ve also purchased a Xioami Redmi Note 3 Pro which I should be receiving in the next week or so.
If I had to choose between CPU power vs GPU power I’d take CPU anyday of the week since that is will make the most of my daily experience. The reason I said what I did is because MediaTek makes great but unbalanced SOCs because they intentionally skimp out on beefy GPU but we are fastly approach the era of low level APIs. Vulkan will be a huge deal on Android and this will make better GPUs a necessity. Just look at the Redmi Note 3 Pro the only reason Xioami dumped MediaTek was mainly due to the weak GPUs in the SOCs.
I disagree with the last part of the comment.
Xiaomi didn’t dump Mediatek
(Not yet at least)
The Mediatek version of their phones are still on sale.
The Redmi Note 3 Pro was meant mostly for the Indian market where they have been banned on selling Mediatek phones.
If that were the only reason then Xiaomi would never have sold the Redmi 3 Pro outside of India nor would they have given it the Pro moniker. It was clearly meant as an upgrade to the original Redmi 3, if you compare benchmarks between the SD650 vs the Helio X10 they are in different leagues, the SD650 performs very close to last year’s flagship SOCs the SD810 and Exynos 7422. So basically you’re getting last year’s $599-799 level performance for $199-$229.
It is an upgrade,i never said differently. They also put a better camera sensor and added SD card slot.
But this doesn’t mean that they dumped Mediatek.
Owning this phone I can tell you that it’s not even close to last year flagships, and you will find out yourself in few days.
Expect a very buggy ROM
you’re wrong! s650 is a great overall soc than x10 not only on the gpu that why xiaomi ditch x10 in redmi note 3.
do you think so? For gaming you basically need a minimum of MP8 .. Samsung’s MP12 is significantly weaker than the adreno 530.
Otherwise though, this is mostly just a waste of silicon.
It’s what I would consider bare minimum since such a GPU would produce Xbox 360/PS3 level graphics on a phone. The Adreno 530 is a massive 256 ALU GPU for a phone with performance approaching that of the Tegra X, that GPU was intentionally made as overkill so Qualcomm could make a statement to those to trashed them for the failure of the SD810.
As I stated in another comment this level of GPU power will matter when Vulkan becames mainstream on Android and more GPGPU functionality comes to mobile SOCs. I don’t ever expect MediaTek to trade GPU performance blows with the likes of Qualcomm or Imagination if they were they would have purchased Vivante for chump change. I do however expect MediaTek to atleast provide GPU performance that is in the same ballpark which as of now they’re still playing AAA ball.
Samsung has it clocked at just 650mhz. Kirin 950 has T880 MP4 clocked at 900mhz, Check its performance. (Mate 8 review Anandtech).
X30 is rumored to come with T880 MP6 clocked at 900mhz. Its performance should be as good or better than the Snapdragon 810 and exynos 7.
Core count is not everything, Clock speed matters too. Samsung used 12 cores at less clock speed just for marketing it.
PS – Which will sustain the performance longer is still a debate.
According to rumors, It will come with the Mali T880 MP6, It looks like half the power of Exynos 8890, but not true.
The T880 MP12 in exynos is clocked at 650mhz. While the T880 MP4 in Kirin 950 is clocked at 900mhz and 700mhz in Helio X20.
The Helio X30 is rumored to come with T880 MP6 at 900mhz. its performance sould match or better Snapdragon 810 and beat Kirin 950 easily.
IMO, Thats a very good overall SOC. Not in the Snapdragon 820 level but good enough for 1080p screens or even QHD.
What i hate is, this will probably not be seen in any phones before 2017. If it would have launched now instead of the X20, it would have given good competition to other flagship SOCs.
Helio X20 is more in line with SD650 and SD652.
Everybody knows Their gpus far behind competition (if there is competition) which is the most important part of SoC for a lot of people. I don’t believe using mp8 configuration instead of mp4 would increase their cost dramatically but they couldn’t gain foothold neither in West nor High end segment because of this choice which they are insisting. Simply I can’t believe such a company not trying to enter these markets seriously.
The company has to focus on profit and maybe they target on different customers
They haven’t yet targeted the very high end yet so you don’t know what they’ll do when they will target it.
Additionally the GPU perf you see in high end is marketing. Look at Exynos 8890 in the Edge sustained perf going 42% down http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/1147/images/S7EdgeChart-21.jpg
With “a lot oft people” you mean those 5-10% of the overall Smartphone marketshare who occasinally run demanding games on their smartphones?
and i’m just here, waiting for someone who makes a x10/x20 smartphone with 480fps slowmotion…
They really should be going for a Mali T880-MP8 as the minimum with possibly the PowerVR GT7600 as the preferred GPU of choice I feel that a grave mistake MediaTek did which prevented a good SOC like the Helio X10 from being a great SOC was the use of the PowerVR GT6200 instead of the GT6430.
Correct
I actually have the X10 and I do believe it’s a great SOC. Yes I did test the GPU against a Snapdragon 801 and it only got half the score.
You know what though I don’t really give a crap. Yes I do understand that some people play games and need a good GPU but there are lots of others that don’t and those just need a GPU to handle the Android UI and a snappy CPU to make everything run smooth and fast.
I like what Mediatek is going and I don’t want to pay more for a better GPU. I’m pretty sure they’re putting in weak GPUs on purpose to keep the costs down and so far it seems to be working pretty well for them.
A bigger issue I see is that X20 is still MIA for some reason.
I’m typing this from my LeTV Le 1S which I just got in the mail this past week and I have to say it’s everyday performance is great. This phone is replacing the OnePlus One I purchased last February which has served me admirably, in addition I’ve also purchased a Xioami Redmi Note 3 Pro which I should be receiving in the next week or so.
If I had to choose between CPU power vs GPU power I’d take CPU anyday of the week since that is will make the most of my daily experience. The reason I said what I did is because MediaTek makes great but unbalanced SOCs because they intentionally skimp out on beefy GPU but we are fastly approach the era of low level APIs. Vulkan will be a huge deal on Android and this will make better GPUs a necessity. Just look at the Redmi Note 3 Pro the only reason Xioami dumped MediaTek was mainly due to the weak GPUs in the SOCs.
do you think so? For gaming you basically need a minimum of MP8 .. Samsung’s MP12 is significantly weaker than the adreno 530.
Otherwise though, this is mostly just a waste of silicon.
It’s what I would consider bare minimum since such a GPU would produce Xbox 360/PS3 level graphics on a phone. The Adreno 530 is a massive 256 ALU GPU for a phone with performance approaching that of the Tegra X, that GPU was intentionally made as overkill so Qualcomm could make a statement to those who trashed them for the failure of the SD810.
As I stated in another comment this level of GPU power will matter when Vulkan becames mainstream on Android and more GPGPU functionality comes to mobile SOCs. I don’t ever expect MediaTek to trade GPU performance blows with the likes of Qualcomm or Imagination if they were they would have purchased Vivante for chump change. I do however expect MediaTek to atleast provide GPU performance that is in the same ballpark which as of now they’re still playing AAA ball.
I disagree with the last part of the comment.
Xiaomi didn’t dump Mediatek
(Not yet at least)
The Mediatek version of their phones are still on sale.
The Redmi Note 3 Pro was meant mostly for the Indian market where they have been banned on selling Mediatek phones.
If that were the only reason then Xiaomi would never have sold the Redmi 3 Pro outside of India nor would they have given it the Pro moniker. It was clearly meant as an upgrade to the original Redmi 3, if you compare benchmarks between the SD650 vs the Helio X10 they are in different leagues, the SD650 performs very close to last year’s flagship SOCs the SD810 and Exynos 7422. So basically you’re getting last year’s $599-799 level performance for $199-$229.
According to rumors, It will come with the Mali T880 MP6, It looks like half the power of Exynos 8890, but not true.
The T880 MP12 in exynos is clocked at 650mhz. While the T880 MP4 in Kirin 950 is clocked at 900mhz and 700mhz in Helio X20.
The Helio X30 is rumored to come with T880 MP6 at 900mhz. its performance sould match or better Snapdragon 810 and beat Kirin 950 easily.
IMO, Thats a very good overall SOC. Not in the Snapdragon 820 level but good enough for 1080p screens or even QHD.
What i hate is, this will probably not be seen in any phones before 2017. If it would have launched now instead of the X20, it would have given good competition to other flagship SOCs.
Helio X20 is more in line with SD650 and SD652.
Samsung has it clocked at just 650mhz. Kirin 950 has T880 MP4 clocked at 900mhz, Check its performance. (Mate 8 review Anandtech).
X30 is rumored to come with T880 MP6 clocked at 900mhz. Its performance should be as good or better than the Snapdragon 810 and exynos 7.
Core count is not everything, Clock speed matters too. Samsung used 12 cores at less clock speed just for marketing it.
PS – Which will sustain the performance longer is still a debate.
It is an upgrade,i never said differently. They also put a better camera sensor and added SD card slot.
But this doesn’t mean that they dumped Mediatek.
Owning this phone I can tell you that it’s not even close to last year flagships, and you will find out yourself in few days.
Expect a very buggy ROM
you’re wrong! s650 is a great overall soc than x10 not only on the gpu that why xiaomi ditch x10 in redmi note 3.
Everybody knows Their gpus far behind competition (if there is competition) which is the most important part of SoC for a lot of people. I don’t believe using mp8 configuration instead of mp4 would increase their cost dramatically but they couldn’t gain foothold neither in West nor High end segment because of this choice which they are insisting. Simply I can’t believe such a company not trying to enter these markets seriously.
The company has to focus on profit and maybe they target on different customers
They haven’t targeted the very high end yet so you don’t know what they’ll do when they will target it.
Additionally the GPU perf you see in high end is marketing. Look at Exynos 8890 in the Edge sustained perf going 42% down The real question is, will they do the same shit or go with a GPU that can actually fit the thermal budget.If they don’t try to deceive like the others, they still can’t win.
With “a lot oft people” you mean those 5-10% of the overall Smartphone marketshare who occasinally run demanding games on their smartphones?
and i’m just here, waiting for someone who makes a x10/x20 smartphone with 480fps slowmotion…
Another chip with a weak gpu incoming.
Hopefully… If idiots like to pay double the price for a rarely used and completely overpowered GPU part, they can still buy Overheatdragon
niiiiice
One mid-range SoC after another, with epicly crap GPUs, and poor AnTuTu scores.
Go buy an IPhone/galax . (In case you don’t already have one)
Here the Galaxy S7 Exynos vs the Huawei Mate 8 https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx40&did1=29889191&os1=Android&api1=gl&hwtype1=GPU&hwname1=ARM+Mali-T880&D2=Huawei+Mate+8+%28NXT-xxx%29
Scroll down and look at long term perf, the S7 @ 24.3 Fps, the Mate 8 @ 37.1 Fps. The 2 devices do have different screen resolutions , one is 1440p and the other 1080p. Nonetheless, with that kind of throttling , Samsung’s MP12 is somehow in the same league as Huawei’s MP4. Yes you get 2x the perf if you only play for a few minutes but if you only play for a few minutes, why the hell care about GPU perf.
yeah because in S7 throttling will start and performance will be low..
it is just marketing for stupid people. mate 8 is the best smartphone in the world
Snapdragon 820 in MI5 has long term perf of 54fps+ on GFXbench. So MI5 happens to be y better than Mate 8 by that logic.
On the GPU side it is but not by a huge margin since, sadly, the throttling is very heavy. On the CPU side it is a lot trickier, so far the Mate 8 is better (vs SD820 and ofc SD820 Lite) and the extra cores can give it an additional advantage in battery life.The SD820 CPU perf should get a bit better over time as the software matures.
Also on the GPU side, this benchmark is not CPU heavy, some games are and SD820 seems (not a lot of data on this for now) more power hungry on the CPU side too. So games that are CPU heavy would leave less room for the GPU and the Mate 8 could end up having better GPU perf there.
We need SoCs that have better power management and honest specs, as well as better tools to test them.Right now it’s very messy and incredibly difficult for consumers to understand what they are really buying.
And as we all know: GPU and Antutu matters!
Despite the popular belief, Mediatek doesn’t offer weaker GPUs at similar costs than its competitors. That belief is utter nonsense IMO.
Wake up people, X10 was never meant to be real high-end chip just like X20 gonna be. I know that Mediatek has claimed those chips are premium, but it should have not that hard to see the truth.
Look, X10 have implemented in $120 worth Redmi Note 2, just 3-4 months after first X10 phones hit the market.
We have yet to see whether that 3 cluster configuration provides any better power efficiency on X20, before further commenting on X30’s 4 cluster.
Lack of UFS fast storage support is a bigger mistake if X30 meant to be their first true high-end SoC IMO.
Also its release date is very important. Early H1 release might be a success, but I’m not sure about a late H2 release.
Although it isn’t sustainable, it will break 11K point at Geekbench multicore which doubles the SD820.
By the time this is out, the next snapdragon will be out.
Good points.
Another chip with a weak gpu incoming.
Hopefully… If idiots like to pay double the price for a rarely used and completely overpowered GPU part, they can still buy Overheatdragon
niiiiice
One mid-range SoC after another, with epicly crap GPUs, and poor AnTuTu scores.
Go buy an IPhone/galax . (In case you don’t already have one)
Here the Galaxy S7 Exynos vs the Huawei Mate 8 https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx40&did1=29889191&os1=Android&api1=gl&hwtype1=GPU&hwname1=ARM+Mali-T880&D2=Huawei+Mate+8+%28NXT-xxx%29
Scroll down and look at long term perf, the S7 @ 24.3 Fps, the Mate 8 @ 37.1 Fps. The 2 devices do have different screen resolutions , one is 1440p and the other 1080p. Nonetheless, with that kind of throttling , Samsung’s MP12 is somehow in the same league as Huawei’s MP4. Yes you get 2x the perf if you only play for a few minutes but if you only play for a few minutes, why the hell care about GPU perf.
The SD820 based Edge goes to 26.4FPS, that’s down 44% https://gfxbench.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=gfx40&did1=30540880&os1=Android&api1=gl&hwtype1=GPU&hwname1=Qualcomm+Adreno+%28TM%29+530&D2=Huawei+Mate+8+%28NXT-xxx%29
And as we all know: GPU and Antutu matters!
This comment was deleted.
Snapdragon 820 in MI5 has long term perf of 54fps+ on GFXbench. So MI5 happens to be y better than Mate 8 by that logic.
On the GPU side it is but not by a huge margin since, sadly, the throttling is very heavy. On the CPU side it is a lot trickier, so far the Mate 8 is better (vs SD820 and ofc SD820 Lite) and the extra cores can give it an additional advantage in battery life.The SD820 CPU perf should get a bit better over time as the software matures.
Also on the GPU side, this benchmark is not CPU heavy, some games are and SD820 seems (not a lot of data on this for now) more power hungry on the CPU side too. So games that are CPU heavy would leave less room for the GPU and the Mate 8 could end up having better GPU perf there.
We need SoCs that have better power management and honest specs, as well as better tools to test them.Right now it’s very messy and incredibly difficult for consumers to understand what they are really buying.
Despite the popular belief, Mediatek doesn’t offer weaker GPUs at similar costs than its competitors. That belief is utter nonsense IMO.
Wake up people, X10 was never meant to be real high-end chip just like X20 gonna be. I know that Mediatek has claimed those chips are premium, but it should have not that hard to see the truth.
Look, X10 have implemented in $120 worth Redmi Note 2, just 3-4 months after first X10 phones hit the market.
We have yet to see whether that 3 cluster configuration provides any better power efficiency on X20, before further commenting on X30’s 4 cluster.
Lack of UFS fast storage support is a bigger mistake if X30 meant to be their first true high-end SoC IMO.
Also its release date is very important. Early H1 release might be a success, but I’m not sure about a late H2 release.
Although it isn’t sustainable, it will break 11K point at Geekbench multicore which doubles the SD820.
By the time this is out, the next snapdragon will be out.
Good points.
mediatek failing.. i can’t see any smartphone with helio x20 for fuk sake..
MTK is dying.. only talking talking now x30 and x20 is not or never been used ..
CRAP
It’s release delayed just like X10 at the time. We will see plenty of X20 phones.
not this year you really have to admit Qualcomm mid range soc specially s650 and s652 are better than mediatek offering.
SD65x is bellow the X20 and both are in a segment of their own with no direct competition.
SD617 is bellow the P10, SD625 will be bellow the P20.
SD65x is great and they did outfox the others with it but don’t compare it with much cheaper SoCs.
Better than X10 for sure, worse than X20. I bet that its cost is closer to X20.
it’s too late now for x20 nobody will want it .. so that is why mediatek covering it with x30 to make it more interesting…
Wait a couple of months. X20 was never meant to be a Snapdragon 820 alternative, clearly its target is cheaper phones.
Mediatek has a Helio X20 event on March 16 and we should see devices soon.
That chip if it doesn’t throttle the chip will have enough graphical horsepower to run all current games without any issues(same as the Kirin 950). It all depends on how the devices with this chip are priced.
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It’s release delayed just like X10 at the time. We will see plenty of X20 phones.
not this year you really have to admit Qualcomm mid range soc specially s650 and s652 are better than mediatek offering.
This comment was deleted.
Mediatek has a Helio X20 event on March 16 and we should see devices soon.
SD65x is bellow the X20 and both are in a segment of their own with no direct competition.
SD617 is bellow the P10, SD625 will be bellow the P20.
SD65x is great and they did outfox the others with it but don’t compare it with much cheaper SoCs.
Wait a couple of months. X20 was never meant to be a Snapdragon 820 alternative, clearly its target is cheaper phones.
Better than X10 for sure, worse than X20. I bet that its cost is closer to X20.
That chip if it doesn’t throttle the chip will have enough graphical horsepower to run all current games without any issues(same as the Kirin 950). It all depends on how the devices with this chip are priced.
Probably Mali 880MP8 or 6, can`t put more, no room.
It would be great if they decide to go back to PowerVR for graphics as their cores are better than Mali, would love to have a 7600MP4 in there.
Probably Mali 880MP8 or 6, can`t put more, no room.
It would be great if they decide to go back to PowerVR for graphics as their cores are better than Mali, would love to have a 7600MP4 in there.