Mediatek MT8183 vs Intel Atom x5-Z8550

Mediatek MT8183

The Mediatek MT8183 is a mainstream ARM SoC (System on a Chip) that was introduced in Late 2019 and is primarily used for Android based tablets. It is manufactured in a 12 nm process (unverified) and has a total of eight CPU cores with four powerful Cortex-A73 and four small Cortex-A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. The integrated graphics card is a ARM Mali-G72 with three clusters (MP3).

Features

Besides CPU and GPU, the chip is also equipped with an LPDDR3/LPDDR4x memory controller, a Wi-Fi 5 (a/b/g/n/ac) modem (but no cellular modem). Furthermore, Mediatek states that it integrated an AI accelerator with a performance of 0.5 TOPS.

The maximum display resolution is only 2,400 x 1,080 pixels.

Intel Atom x5-Z8550

The Intel Atom x5-Z8550 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for Windows and Android devices (tablets and convertibles), which has been presented in February 2016. It is clocked at 1.44 - 2.4 GHz and part of the Cherry Trail platform. Thanks to its new 14 nanometer low-power process (P1273) with tri-gate transistors, energy efficiency has been significantly improved over its predecessor Bay Trail-T (e.g. Atom Z3795). In addition to the CPU cores, the SoC offers a DirectX 11.2-capable GPU as well as a LPDDR3 Memory Controller (2x 64 bit, 25.6 GB/s). Compared to the previous year x5-Z8500, the boost clock speed gained 160 MHz (from 2.24 to 2.4 GHz).

Architecture

The processor cores are based on the Airmont architecture, which is basically a slightly modified shrink of the previous Silvermont core. While performance per clock has not been improved, the more efficient 14 nm process may lead to a better utilization of the CPU Burst (alias Turbo Boost) and therefore a somewhat higher performance in certain situations.

Performance

Compared to the Atom x7-Z8700, the Atom x5-Z8550 offers a similar boost speed and should therefore perform on a similar level. Compared to ARM-based SoCs it should offer a similar performance as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 (CPU wise). 

Using Windows, the chip is adequate for everyday tasks such as Internet or Office, but not for very complex software or modern games.

Graphics

The HD Graphics (Cherry Trail) was renamed to Intel HD Graphics 400 in this generation. It is still based on the Intel Gen8 architecture, which supports DirectX 11.2 and is also found in the Broadwell series (e.g. HD Graphics 5300). With 12 EUs (Execution Units) and a clock speed of up to 600 MHz, the GPU is about twice as fast as the HD Graphics (Bay Trail) and will handle older and less demandig Windows games (e.g. Counter-Strike: GO) in very low settings at decent frame rates. The GPU also supports 4K/H.265 video acceleration.

Compared to ARM SoCs, the HD Graphics offers a performance similar to the Qualcomm Adreno 330 or PowerVR G6430.

Power Consumption

The entire SoC is rated at an SDP of 2 watts, which indicates a TDP of less than 4 watts. Thus, the chip can be used in passively cooled tablets.