Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G vs MediaTek Dimensity 7050

Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G Mobile Platform (SM8250-AC) is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in mid 2021. The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 3.2 GHz and three additional 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. Compared to the similar and older Snapdragon 865+, the Prime Core clocks 100 MHz faster and the GPU is slightly higher clocked.

Therefore, the Snapdragon 870 is slightly faster than the old Snapdragon 865 and 865 Plus and slots in behind the high end Snapdragon 888.

The Mobile Platform integrates a Qualcomm X55 5G modem with Sub-5 and mmWave support and global 5G bands with up to 7.5 GBit/s (download) speed. The SmartConnect 6800 modem supports Wi-Fi 6 with 8x8 MU-MIMU and 60 GHz 11ay up to 10 Gbps. 

The integrated GPU is still called Adreno 650 and offers a slightly higher clock speed of 670 MHz.

The on board Hexagon 698 DSP now offers a 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 also untouched. The integrated Computer Vision Engine (CV-ISP) now supports Dolby Vision, 8K videos and 200 megapixel photos.

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

The SoC is manufactured in the modern and power efficient 7nm process.

MediaTek Dimensity 7050

The Mediatek Dimensity 7050 (Mediatek MT8791N/TN)  is a mid-range ARM SoC (system-on-a-chip) that can be used in both smartphones and tablets (mainly Android). The SoC integrates two ARM Cortex-A78 cores with up to 2.6 GHz for demanding tasks and six power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores with clock rates of up to 2 GHz. The specifications are identical to the old Dimensity 1080.

The chip has an integrated sub-6 GHz 5G modem including dual-SIM support that can reach a maximum download speed of up to 2.77 Gbit/s. Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) is supported as well as Bluetooth 5.2.

The memory controller copes with LPDDR4x or LPDDR5 working memory as well as UFS 3.1 mass storage. As an integrated graphics card, the SoC uses the ARM Mali-G68 MC4, which supports displays with 120 Hz as well as HDR10+ at a maximum resolution of 2,520 x 1,440 pixels.

The MediaTek Dimensity 7050 is still manufactured in 6 nm.