PowerVR GX6450 vs ARM Mali-G52 MP1 vs ARM Mali-G57 MP4

PowerVR GX6450

The Imagination Technologies PowerVR GX6450 is a fast mobile graphics solution for smartphones and tablets, which can be found in ARM SoCs such as the Apple A8 (iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus). The chip is available since Q3/2014 and of one of the fastest solutions in its class at the time of introduction.

Architecture and Performance

The GPU is based on the PowerVR Series 6XT (Rogue) Unified Shader architecture and integrates four clusters with two TMUs and 32 FP32-ALUs each. Therefore, the theoretical FP32 (full precision) compute performance per clock is identical to the previous G6430 (also 4 clusters) found in the Apple A7. Thanks to additional dedicated FP16-ALUs, however, the also important FP16 (half precision) performance has been greatly improved.

In the iPhone 6, the GPU should be clocked at around 450 MHz, delivering about 115 GLOPS (FP32). Compared to other mobile graphics solutions, the GX6450 outperforms the Qualcomm Adreno 330 (Snapdragon 800/801) and matches the more recent Adreno 420 (Snapdragon 805). Except for Nvidia's power hungry tablet chip Tegra K1 and its bigger cousin GX6650, the GX6450 is one of the fastest mobile GPUs in late 2014. Even the most advanced games and high resolution displays are handled without any problems. Among others, the GPU supports OpenGL 3.x/4.x, OpenGL ES 3.0 as well as DirectX 10.

Power Consumption

Thanks to the advanced 20-nanometer process and the relatively low clock rate, the GX6450 implementation in Apple's A8 offers a very high energy efficiency. On the other hand, the GPU has a comparatively "wide" architecture requirering a lot of transistors and die size (19 mm² in 20 nm).

ARM Mali-G52 MP1

The ARM Mali-G52 MP1 (or G52MC1) is an integrated mid-range graphics card for ARM based SoCs (mostly Android based Tablets). It was introduced mid 2020 in the MediaTek MT8168 with a clock speed of up to 800 MHz.

The G52 is based on the Bifrost architecture and is intended for mainstream phones. ARM claims that the G52 series offers 30% more performance density and 15% better energy efficiency compared to the ARM Mali G51 series.

The performance of the G52MP2 in our benchmarks (in the MediaTek MT8168) is clearly below the G52 MP2 version in the entry level. That means its not well suited for demanding 3D Android games like PUBG Mobile.

The GPU supports all modern graphics APIs like OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.0, OpenCL 2.0 and Renderscript.

ARM Mali-G57 MP4

The ARM Mali-G57 MP4 is an integrated mid-range graphics card for ARM based SoCs (mostly Android based). It was introduced late 2020 in the MediaTek Dimensity 800 and uses 4 clusters (hence the MC4/MP4 name). 

The G57 is based on the new Valhall architecture and is intended for mainstream phones. 

The performance of the G57MP4 in our benchmarks is comparable to the Adreno 620.

The GPU supports all modern graphics APIs like OpenGL ES 3.2, Vulkan 1.1, OpenCL 2.0 and Renderscript.