MWC 2018 | MediaTek Helio P60 spotted on Geekbench, could be launching at MWC 2018

MediaTek looks to be working on a new SoC for the upper midrange segment. Dubbed the Helio P60, the SoC was made its way to Geekbench with a moniker "MTK P60 MWC Demo' implying an MWC unveil. On Geekbench, the new SoC posted scores of 1524 (single-core) and 5871 (multi-core) placing it squarely in the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 territory.

The Geekbench listing shows the Helio P60 tested on a reference device running Android 8.1 Oreo with 4 GB RAM. It is an octa-core chip with a base clock of 1.99 GHz and most likely implements ARM's big.LITTLE architecture. While it is not clear what the exact cores are, the given scores seem to suggest Cortex A73 ones.

The fabrication for the Helio P60 will be based on TSMC's 12nm process. It is a bit unclear at this point as to how many P-series SoCs the company is planning to introduce this year. We know of the P40 and P70 doing the rounds in rumors but whether the P60 is actually either the purported P40 or P70, or will it be a complete range of chips including the P40, P60, and P70 is still anyone's guess.

MediaTek is also mulling at taking a deep dive with 7nm chips in 2018 while rivals Samsung and Qualcomm will be keeping it put at 10nm. Also, the failure of the Helio X30 sort of made matters a bit complicated as it did not address the global modem requirements and was out of reach for most Chinese OEMs looking to build affordable handsets. Therefore, we might not see the Helio X-series being resurrected anytime soon but the P-series is here to stay. Hopefully, MediaTek will reveal a more detailed plan for 2018 at MWC.

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