Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 vs Mediatek Helio G36

Qualcomm Snapdragon 865

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 Mobile Platform is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in December 2019. The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 2.84 GHz and three further fast ARM Cortex-A77 performance cores, which can reach up to 2.42 GHz. These are complemented by four power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock up to a maximum of 1.8 GHz. The difference to the older Snapdragon 855 is the switch from Cortex-A76 to the faster Cortex-A77 architecture. The clock speeds stay the same. 

Therefore, the Snapdragon 865 takes the top spot in mobile processors for Android based systems. In some multi-core workloads, the SD865 can even perform on par with the Apple A13 SoC. Single thread, however is still a strong suit of the Apple SoCs.

Compared to the previous generations, the Snapdragon 865 does not integrate an LTE modem anymore, but has to be paired with the new X55 5G modem, that also supports LTE Cat 24/22. The Wi-Fi module however is still integrated and called FastConnect 6800 with support for Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and 8x8 MU-MIMU and 60 GHz 802.11ay with up to 10 Gbps. Bluetooth 5.1 is also supported including aptX Adaptive.

The integrated GPU is now called Adreno 650 and should offer 20% more performance than the Adreno 640 in the Snapdragon 855.

The on board Hexagon 698 DSP now offers an improved KI performance of up to 15 TOPS (up from 7 TOPS in the 855) and still uses a combination of CPU, GPU, HVX and Tensor cores. The Spectra 480 ISP is now also significantly faster. The integrated Computer Vision Engine (CV-ISP) now supports Dolby Vision, 8K videos and 200 megapixel photos.

The built-in memory controller now supports LPDDR5 with up to 2,750 MHz and LPDDR4X with 2,133 MHz.

The Snapdragon 865 is manufactured at TSMC in the new improved 7nm process (N7P, DUV-based). The process offers a 7% higher performance or 10% less power consumption compared to the old N7 process.

Mediatek Helio G36

The Mediatek Helio G36 is an entry level ARM SoC for smartphones (mainly Android based) that was introduced in late 2023. It is manufactured in a 12 nm FinFET process and is equipped with 8 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at up to 2.2 GHz. Compared to the similar Helio G25, the G36 offers higher CPU clock speeds (+ 200 MHz), GPU clock speeds (+30 MHz) and supports higher display resolutions of up to 2400 x 1800. Compared to the similar Helio G35, the G36 offers a 100 MHz lower CPU clock but supports 90Hz screens.

Furthermore, the SoC integrates a LTE Cat.4 modem, a Wi-Fi 5 / Bluetooth 5.0 modem, a LPDDR3-933 / LPDDR4-1200 / LPDDR4x-1600 memory controller, a IMG PowerVR GE8320 graphics card, and a 1080p30 video de- and encoder (H.265 decoding, H.264 encoding).