MediaTek gives first look at the deca-core Helio X30 SoC

In an interview with Chinese publisher EET, COO of MediaTek Zhu Shangzu let loose some information regarding the company's next flagship processor designed to take on competitors like Qualcomm and Samsung. Accordingly, users can expect next year's Helio X30 to be the manufacturer's first 10 nm SoC produced at TSMC. The shrinking manufacturing process should lead to significant performance-per-Watt advantages over the existing Helio X20 and X25 SoCs. The X30 will purportedly be another 10-core processor made up of four Cortex-A73 cores at 2.8 GHz, four Cortex-A53 cores at 2.2 GHz, and two low-power Cortex-A35 cores at 2 GHz.

In addition to the central processing units, the Helio X30 will integrate a quad-core PowerVR 7XT GPU. This is a change from previous MediaTek SoCs that relied on ARM's Mali solution instead. The SoC can support up to 8 GB LPDDR4 RAM and UFS 2.1 eMMC with an integrated modem up to Cat. 10 LTE or Cat. 12 LTE speeds. Its processing power will also support dual cameras of up to 26 MP each.

First deliveries are not expected to arrive until the Q2/Q3 2017 time frame. Thus, smartphones sporting the brand new MediaTek SoC are not likely to be available during the first half of next year.

A months old benchmark from Weibo shows how the Helio X30 would roughly compare to the current Snapdragon 820 SoC. MediaTek's new SoC could reach an AnTuTu score of 160,000 points compared to 155,000 points from the Snapdragon 821. Of course, Qualcomm will very likely be preparing its proper successor to the Snapdraogn 820 by the time the Helio X30 reaches the market.

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