Mediatek MT8735 vs Intel Atom Z2760 vs Mediatek MT6750N

Mediatek MT8735

The Mediatek MT8735 is a mid range ARM based SoC for (mostly Android based) smartphones. It was manufactured in 28nm and offers a quad-core processor with four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at up to 1.3 GHz. As a graphics card, the SoC integrates a ARM MAli-T720MP2. The integrated LTE radio supports CDMA2000 and a 5GHz 802.11bgn WiFi modem is also included.

Intel Atom Z2760

The Intel Atom Z2760 is a SoC (System on a Chip) with the Codename Cloverview and part of the Clovertrail platform. The Z2760 is a one chip SoC and integrates a dual core Atom processor clocked at  max. 1.8 GHz. Due to Hyper-Threading, 4 threads can be executed on the two cores (for improved efficiency). Altough the Atom cores theoretically support 64 Bit, the Z2760 is only specified for 32 Bit operating systems.

The processor performance is on a level with other dual core Atom processors at 1.8 GHz as the Atom D525. Therefore, demanding tasks like HD video cutting is too much for the slow CPU cores. According to the Geekbench results, the Atom Z2760 in Windows 8 tablets offers a similar performance than a fast Tegra 3 or a OMAP 4470 with two 1.5 GHz Cortex-A9 cores.

The integrated graphics card is based on a PowerVR SGX 545 (DirectX 9_3 support) design and clocked at 533 MHz. The video decoder and encoder also stem from Imagination Technologies.

Furthermore, a dual channel LPDDR2 memory controller for a maximum of 2 GB RAM is integrated.

The whole SoC was optimized for power efficiency and low power consumption. It is produced with a 32nm LP (low power) process. Therefore, the power consumtion is in the same league as some ARM SoCs like the Tegra 3 and passive cooling is possible. The TDP ranges between 1.7 and 3 Watt (e.g. at techpowerup) depending on the source.

Mediatek MT6750N

The ARM-based Mediatek MT6750N SoC (System on a Chip) is a mid-range mobile processor for smartphones and tablets (mostly Android based). It integrates 8 ARM Cortex-A53 cores consisting of 4 high-performance cores clocked at up to 1.5 GHz plus 4 low-power cores clocked at up to 1 GHz each. Furthermore, the SoC integrates a Cat. 6 LTE radio and an ARM Mali-T860 MP2 GPU with 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Compared to the older MT6750, the graphics card seems to be clocked higher.

The Cortex-A53 is the successor to the Cortex-A7 and introduces 64-Bit support (ARMv8-ISA). Its performance-per-Watt is significantly higher and is even slightly ahead of the old Cortex-A9. If utilizing all 8 of its cores, the Cortex-A53 can rival competing mobile processes in the high-end class range. However, no practical software has been specifically coded to use all 8 cores at such high performance levels.

In addition to the CPU and GPU cores, the SoC also contains a memory controller and the aforementioned Cat.6 LTE modem (FDD/TDD, DC-HSPA+, TD-SCDMA, CDMA2000, EDGE) with both 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth. The integrated video engine is able to record and playback 1080p videos at up to 30 FPS in hardware. Cameras are supported at up to 16 MP.

The MT6750 is still manufactured in 28nm and so power efficiency is not on par with modern 14/16nm chips.