Mediatek MT8173C

The Mediatek MT8173C is an upper mainstream ARM SoC (System on a chip) that was introduced in March 2015 and is primarily used for Android based tablets and Chromebooks. It is manufactured in a 28 nm process and has a total of four CPU cores with two Cortex-A72 and two Cortex-A53 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. The graphics unit is based on the IMG Series 6XT (Rogue) and has the designation PowerVR GX6250. Among others, the GPU includes a video decoder with 4K and H.265 support.

Processor

The biggest highlight of the SoC are the new Cortex-A72 cores, which can be seen as the successors to the Cortex-A57 design. ARM promises much more performance in combination with reduced power consumption, which results in an excellent per-thread performance with the very high maximum clock of 2.4 GHz. The architecture is based on ARMv8-ISA and therefore supports 64-bit.

The two slower, but therefore very frugal Cortex-A53 cores (clocks unknown, probably around 1.5 GHz) are supposed to reduce the power consumption and are always active with light workloads. The big.LITTLE configuration also allows the simultaneous use of all four cores (or any combination of cores from both clusters), so the MT8173C can be called a real quad-core.

Graphics

The graphics unit is based on Series 6XT (Rogue) from IMG and has the designation PowerVR GX6250. The 2-cluster chip has a unified-shader architecture with a total of 64 FP32 ALUs as well as 4 TMUs. Thanks to the comparatively high maximum clock of 700 MHz, the performance is roughly on par with the PowerVR G6430 in the iPhone 5s. High-resolution screens and complex Android games from 2015 are usually no problem for the GPU.

Features

Besides CPU and GPU, the chip is also equipped with an LPDDR3 memory controller (2x 32-bit, probably up to 933 MHz, 14.9 GB/s), but no wireless modem. The maximum display resolution is 2560 x 1600 pixels. Another highlight is the integrated video engine, which even supports 4K material and the modern H.265 codec.

Power Consumption

The MT8173 is manufactured in an 28 nm process and should have a average up to high power consumption. It can still be used in tablets and laptops without limitations.

Codename

Cortex-A72/-A53

Series

Mediatek

Series: Mediatek Cortex-A72/-A53

Mediatek MT8176	2.1 GHz	6 / 6	Cortex-A72/-A53
Mediatek MT8173	2.4 GHz	4 / 4	Cortex-A72/-A53
Mediatek MT8173C «	2.1 GHz	4 / 4	Cortex-A72/-A53

Clock Rate

2100 MHz

Number of Cores / Threads

4 / 4

Manufacturing Technology

28 nm

Features

20 MP Camera ISP, 4K Video Encoder, H.265, PowerVR GX6250 GPU

GPU

PowerVR GX6250 (? - 700 MHz)

64 Bit

64 Bit support

Architecture

ARM

Announcement Date

03/01/2015

Benchmarks

3DMark - 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Physics

13994 Points (12%)

+ 1 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	13994

3DMark - 3DMark Sling Shot (ES 3.0) Unlimited Physics

1382 Points (16%)

+ 1 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	1382

Geekbench 4.0 - Geekbench 4.0 64 Bit Single-Core

1451 points (20%)

+ 1 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	1451

Geekbench 4.0 - Geekbench 4.0 64 Bit Multi-Core

2570 points (6%)

+ 1 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	2570

Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Kraken 1.1 Total Score *

min: 2976 avg: 3319 median: 3297 (4%) max: 3684 ms

+ 3 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 Chrome 59.0.3071.109	4 GB	2976
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz Chrome 56	4 GB	3297
Lenovo Chromebook C330-81HY0000US	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	3684

Sunspider - Sunspider 1.0 Total Score *

min: 578 avg: 669 median: 590 (6%) max: 839 ms

+ 3 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz Chrome 56	4 GB	578
Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 Chrome 59.0.3071.109	4 GB	590
Lenovo Chromebook C330-81HY0000US	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	839

Octane V2 - Octane V2 Total Score

min: 10139 avg: 10516 median: 10319 (9%) max: 11089 Points

+ 3 benchmarks and specifications + Show comparison chart

Model	CPU	GPU	RAM	Value
Acer Chromebook R13 CB5-312T-K0YK	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz Chrome 56	4 GB	10139
Lenovo Flex 11 Chromebook	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 Chrome 59.0.3071.109	4 GB	10319
Lenovo Chromebook C330-81HY0000US	MT8173C	PowerVR GX6250 700 MHz	4 GB	11089