Hm. Seems reasonable that the X20 and X25 are being replaced by these, no? Given how incredibly closely specced they are, this seems like Mediatek doing a "Haswell Refresh". No way they'll keep marketing two sets of high-ish-end SoCs with a scant 100mHz between them.
Kind of makes sense, as the A72 is being replaced in (some) high-end chips by the A73, while the 20nm production process is ever more obsolete. Fitting to do a refresh to keep these chips relevant in the "lower high-end" or "high-end midrange".
Highest thing is how do these compare yo Snapdragon equivalents? Decacore Mediatek chips seem to score well on benchmarks but they're not as speedy in the real world, along with using more power than Qualcomm chips on a larger process node.
True - but that's a given with the process advantage of the Snapdragon 820/821 and the Exynos 8890. What would be interesting here would be to compare actual operating frequencies in real-world scenarios, and power consumption/heat under these conditions. Considering the performance of the Kirin 950/955, the A72 seems like a decent core.
I'm actually thinking about the Snapdragon 65x chips on 28nm. The A72 cores on those pack quite a punch while overall SoC power consumption is quite low because of the A53 cores used for most processing. I'm still not convinced about Mediatek's decacore designs - they're not good enough for flagships while comparable Snapdragon chips have better performance *and* lower power consumption.
I think it's interesting as a general point to consider the fact of the 20nm here. Ever since ATI and nV decided to skip 20nm, the internet jumped to the conclusion that 20nm was "worthless", a mistake by TSMC, and was destined to be a "short-lived node" (whatever that means).
After two years experience I think we can conclude from this something about internet hysteria and how it is driven by a few large bullet-points ('nV doesn't want to use TSMC 20nm. OMG, that means 20nm must be useless for ALL purposes."). Obviously the leading edge has moved past 20nm, and by Q2, maybe even Q1 2017, the leading edge will have moved past 16nm FF on both TSMC and Samsung. But that was always going to happen; the point is what happened after the leading edge moved on. And it's interesting to see that 20nm continues to have some life in it, because the entire world doesn't need to run on the leading edge.
More interesting, I think, is the question of why GloFo has been so unable to exploit this on-going interest at 20nm to offer a process that's cost competitive with TSMC and retains the simplicity but uses FD-SOI to match FF performance. They've been talking this up for what, a year?, two years?, now but nothing ever seems to happen.
Because it's very probably an unchanged layout. Maybe purely binned chips, maybe with some physical layout tweaks. Offering these doesn't cost thme much, whereas including a stronger GPU (what for?) would require a serious redesign in the sense that lots of things would have to be checked again.
Considering most apps are still happy with a Mali 400/450, the GPU isn't that important... Unless of course you are doing emulation or something, otherwise mobile apps just don't seem to push the GPU all that hard.
I kind of agree, but this really only applies if you game on your phone. And more demanding stuff than Pokemon Go or Candy Crush, at that. Most people don't, and as such reap the power and cost savings of having a smaller GPU.
On the other hand, if Mediatek has true high-end aspirations, they need to produce a high-end chip with a matching GPU.
Still Cortex A53? Didn't Cortex A35 came out like a year ago? Isn't it a direct successor to A53? Or are we going to see another one as its successor soon? It seems like A53 has outpassed its expected life cycle.
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SaolDan - Thursday, December 1, 2016 - link
Neat!!shabby - Thursday, December 1, 2016 - link
Binning to the eXtreme!jjj - Thursday, December 1, 2016 - link
The 2.1GHz was MT6797m with X20@ 2.3GHz being MT6797. Now the X23 gets the D suffix.Valantar - Thursday, December 1, 2016 - link
Hm. Seems reasonable that the X20 and X25 are being replaced by these, no? Given how incredibly closely specced they are, this seems like Mediatek doing a "Haswell Refresh". No way they'll keep marketing two sets of high-ish-end SoCs with a scant 100mHz between them.Kind of makes sense, as the A72 is being replaced in (some) high-end chips by the A73, while the 20nm production process is ever more obsolete. Fitting to do a refresh to keep these chips relevant in the "lower high-end" or "high-end midrange".
serendip - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
Highest thing is how do these compare yo Snapdragon equivalents? Decacore Mediatek chips seem to score well on benchmarks but they're not as speedy in the real world, along with using more power than Qualcomm chips on a larger process node.Valantar - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
True - but that's a given with the process advantage of the Snapdragon 820/821 and the Exynos 8890. What would be interesting here would be to compare actual operating frequencies in real-world scenarios, and power consumption/heat under these conditions. Considering the performance of the Kirin 950/955, the A72 seems like a decent core.serendip - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
I'm actually thinking about the Snapdragon 65x chips on 28nm. The A72 cores on those pack quite a punch while overall SoC power consumption is quite low because of the A53 cores used for most processing. I'm still not convinced about Mediatek's decacore designs - they're not good enough for flagships while comparable Snapdragon chips have better performance *and* lower power consumption.name99 - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
I think it's interesting as a general point to consider the fact of the 20nm here.Ever since ATI and nV decided to skip 20nm, the internet jumped to the conclusion that 20nm was "worthless", a mistake by TSMC, and was destined to be a "short-lived node" (whatever that means).
After two years experience I think we can conclude from this something about internet hysteria and how it is driven by a few large bullet-points ('nV doesn't want to use TSMC 20nm. OMG, that means 20nm must be useless for ALL purposes.").
Obviously the leading edge has moved past 20nm, and by Q2, maybe even Q1 2017, the leading edge will have moved past 16nm FF on both TSMC and Samsung. But that was always going to happen; the point is what happened after the leading edge moved on. And it's interesting to see that 20nm continues to have some life in it, because the entire world doesn't need to run on the leading edge.
More interesting, I think, is the question of why GloFo has been so unable to exploit this on-going interest at 20nm to offer a process that's cost competitive with TSMC and retains the simplicity but uses FD-SOI to match FF performance. They've been talking this up for what, a year?, two years?, now but nothing ever seems to happen.
RaichuPls - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
Any idea why they're still using that underpowered GPU? The Galaxy S7 has a MP12 configuration...MrSpadge - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
Because it's very probably an unchanged layout. Maybe purely binned chips, maybe with some physical layout tweaks. Offering these doesn't cost thme much, whereas including a stronger GPU (what for?) would require a serious redesign in the sense that lots of things would have to be checked again.StevoLincolnite - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
Considering most apps are still happy with a Mali 400/450, the GPU isn't that important... Unless of course you are doing emulation or something, otherwise mobile apps just don't seem to push the GPU all that hard.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
Great, higher clocks but still a dog slow GPU. These deca core SoCs need a MP 8 or 12 core, not a MP4.Valantar - Friday, December 2, 2016 - link
I kind of agree, but this really only applies if you game on your phone. And more demanding stuff than Pokemon Go or Candy Crush, at that. Most people don't, and as such reap the power and cost savings of having a smaller GPU.On the other hand, if Mediatek has true high-end aspirations, they need to produce a high-end chip with a matching GPU.
tuxRoller - Sunday, December 4, 2016 - link
"MediaTek’s custom-developed, power-aware scheduler, CorePilot 3.0"https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/mediatek/
Where's the code, MediaTek?
I'll take the upstreamed version, shepherded by http://www.kernelhub.org/?p=7&dev=269&mbox... at any rate.
Krysto - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link
Still Cortex A53? Didn't Cortex A35 came out like a year ago? Isn't it a direct successor to A53? Or are we going to see another one as its successor soon? It seems like A53 has outpassed its expected life cycle.tuxRoller - Sunday, December 11, 2016 - link
The the a35 is the successor to the a7/a5.The P35 and X30 actually include the a73, a53 and a35, iirc.
Ethos Evoss - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link
where is x25 mentioned?!?!? Elephone used t in Elepthone S7 special editionhttp://www.elephone.hk/elephone-s7-x25-limited-edi...