Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G vs Mediatek Helio G96

Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G (SD730G Mobile Platform) is a fast mid-range ARM-based SoC largely found on Android tablets and smartphones. It integrates eight cores (octa-core) divided into two clusters. A fast performance cluster contains two ARM Cortex-A76 cores clocked at up to 2.3 GHz (Kryo 465 Gold) and a power efficiency cluster with six small ARM Cortex-A55 cores at up to 1.8 GHz (Kryo 465 Silver). Depending on the workload only single clusters or all cores can run at different clock speeds.

The differences to the Snapdragon 730(G) Kryo 470 are not known, although the performance is comparable.

The chip includes a range of other features like a fast X15 LTE radio (800 Mbits Cat 15 download), Wi-Fi 6 wireless radios (802.11ax), satellite positioning, USB-C 3.1, Spectra 350L ISP, Hexagon 692 DSP, H.265 video en- and decode, an LPDDR4X-3733 dual-channel memory controller and a Adreno 618 graphics card.

The Snapdragon 720G is manufactured in the modern 8 nm process at Samsung (8LLP).

Mediatek Helio G96

The Mediatek Helio G96 is a mainstream ARM SoC for smartphones (mainly Android based) that was introduced in 2021. It is manufactured in a 12 nm FinFET process and is equipped with 2x big ARM Cortex-A76 cores with up to 2.05 GHz and 6x small and power efficient ARM Cortex-A55 cores (max. 2 GHz) in two clusters (bigLITTLE). The chip integrates an ARM Mali-G57 MC2 (two cores) clocked at up to 950 MHz. Compared to the similar Helio G95, the G96 offers a slower GPU but supports 120 Hz displays (G95 90 Hz).

Furthermore, the integrated LTE modem supports Cat-12 600 Mbps download and Cat-13 150 Mbps upload speeds. Wi-Fi 5 is also integrated (a/b/g/n/ac). The memory controller supports LPDDR3 and LPDDR4x with up to 2,133 MHz with up to 10 GB capacity.