Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 vs Mediatek Helio A25 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917)

Qualcomm Snapdragon 626

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 (SD626) is a mid-range octa-core SoC with eight ARM Cortex-A53 cpu cores at up to 2.2 GHz, an Adreno 506 GPU, a DDR3L-1866 memory controller and a X9 LTE (Cat 7, 4G+, 300 Mbps down, 150 Mbps up) modem. Furthermore, the chip supports 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1. It is manufactured in 14nm FinFet. The processor performance should be a bit higher than the average Snapdragon 625, due to the 200 MHz higher maximum clock speed.

Mediatek Helio A25

The Mediatek Helio A25 is an entry level ARM SoC for smartphones (mainly Android based) that was introduced in early 2020. It is manufactured in a 12 nm FinFET process and is equipped with 8 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores divided in two clusters. A performance cluster with 4 cores clocked at up to 1.8 GHz and a efficiency cluster clocked at up to 1.5 GHz.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a LTE Cat.4 modem, a LPDDR3-933 / LPDDR4-1200 / LPDDR4x-1600 memory controller, a IMG PowerVR GE8320 graphics card and a 1080p30 video de- and encoder (H.265 decoding, H.264 encoding).

Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917)

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (8917) is an ARM-based entry level SoC for tablets and smartphones (mostly Android based). It was announced in February 2016 and integrates four 64-Bit Cortex-A53 CPU cores (quad-core) that clock with up to 1.4 GHz. Furthermore, there is a Adreno 308 graphics card, a LPDDR3 memory controller (max. 667 MHz) and wireless radios for WiFi and 4G/LTE included in the chip.

The Cortex-A53 is the successor of the entry level Cortex-A7 CPU cores. The A53 is now capable of 64 Bit (ARMv8-ISA) and adressing more than 4 GB RAM. According to ARM the performance per MHz is a lot better and even surpasses a Cortex-A9 core.

The integrated Adreno 308 ist the integrated graphics card that supports OpenGL ES 3.0.

The integrated wireless radios support WiFi 802.11ac Wave 2, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/GLONASS/Baidou, 2G, 3G and 4G (LTE Cat.4) standards. Futhermore, the SoC is able to decode 1080p videos in H.265 (encode only in H.264) and cameras with up to 13 MP.

The power consumption of the chip is ranging in the lower range, and therefore it is also suited for smaller smartphones. It is manufactured in 28 nm LP at TSMC.