MediaTek MT8161 vs Renesas MP5232 vs HiSilicon Kirin 650

MediaTek MT8161

The MediaTek MT8161 is an ARM based entry-level to mid-range SoC for (Android based) tablets. It offers four ARM Cortex-A53 processor cores (quad-core) that are clocked with up to 1.3 GHz. Furthermore, an ARM Mali-720 graphics card, a LPDDR3 memory controller (e.g., accessing 1 GB in the Lenovo Tab 2 A8-50), Bluetooth 4.0 and dual-band 802.11 b/g/n are integrated in the SoC.

The performance is situated in the entry level of 2015 and often similar to the Kirin 910T (see benchmark below).

Renesas MP5232

The Renesas MP5232 is an entry level ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core SoC with integrated LTE cat. 4 radio. It aims at "cheap" Android based smartphones with LTE between 150 and 300 Dollars. Both CPU cores are clocked at up to 1.5 GHz, although e.g. in the Samsung Galaxy Core LTE SM-G386F they are limited to 1.2 GHz. In addition to the ARM processor cores, the MP5232 features a PowerVR SGX544 graphics card, LTE cat. 4 / DC-HSPA+ 3G / Edge radio, 1080p video de- and encoder, and a 20 MP ISP.

HiSilicon Kirin 650

The HiSilicon Kirin 650 is an ARM-based octa-core SoC for mid-range smartphones and tablets. It was announced early 2016 and features eight ARM Cortex-A53 cores. Four cores can be clocked with up to 1.7 GHz (power saving cores) and four with up to 2 GHz (performance cores). Furthermore, a ARM Mali-T830 MP2 graphics card (at 600 MHz with 40.8 GFLOPS), a 64-Bit LPDDR3 memory controller and a dual-sim capable LTE Cat. 6 (max. 300 MBit/s and GSM, WCDMA, UMTS, HSPA+) radio are integrated in the SoC.

The processor performance can be compared with the older Kirin 930 and therefore sufficient for daily usage as browsing and non demanding apps. High-end SoCs with Cortex-A57 or A72 cores however should be noticeably faster.

The SoC is produced in a modern 16nm FinFET process and is therefore very power efficient.