Mediatek Helio G36 vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917)

Mediatek Helio G36

The Mediatek Helio G36 is an entry level ARM SoC for smartphones (mainly Android based) that was introduced in late 2023. It is manufactured in a 12 nm FinFET process and is equipped with 8 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at up to 2.2 GHz. Compared to the similar Helio G25, the G36 offers higher CPU clock speeds (+ 200 MHz), GPU clock speeds (+30 MHz) and supports higher display resolutions of up to 2400 x 1800. Compared to the similar Helio G35, the G36 offers a 100 MHz lower CPU clock but supports 90Hz screens.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a LTE Cat.4 modem, a Wi-Fi 5 / Bluetooth 5.0 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.