ARM processor is a mobile processor for smartphones and tablets.

This table presents all currently known ARM processors. The table of ARM processors will be supplemented and upgraded as new models appear. This table uses a conditional system for evaluating CPU and GPU performance. ARM processor performance data was taken from a variety of sources, mainly based on the results of tests such as: PassMark, Antutu, GFXBench.

We do not claim absolute accuracy. Absolutely accurately rank and evaluate the performance of ARM processors impossible, for the simple reason that each of them has advantages in some ways, but in some ways lags behind other ARM processors. The table of ARM processors allows you to see, evaluate and, most importantly, compare different SoCs (System-On-Chip) solutions. Using our table, you can compare mobile processors and it’s enough to find out exactly how the ARM heart of your future (or present) smartphone or tablet is positioned.

Here we have compared ARM processors. We looked at and compared the performance of CPU and GPU in different SoCs (System-on-Chip). But the reader may have several questions: Where are ARM processors used? What is an ARM processor? How does ARM architecture differ from x86 processors? Let's try to understand all this without going too deep into details.

First, let's define the terminology. ARM is the name of the architecture and at the same time the name of the company leading its development. The abbreviation ARM stands for (Advanced RISC Machine or Acorn RISC Machine), which can be translated as: advanced RISC machine. ARM architecture combines a family of both 32 and 64-bit microprocessor cores developed and licensed by ARM Limited. I would like to note right away that the ARM Limited company is exclusively engaged in the development of kernels and tools for them (debugging tools, compilers, etc.), but not in the production of the processors themselves. Company ARM Limited sells licenses for the production of ARM processors to third parties. Here is a partial list of companies licensed to produce ARM processors today: AMD, Atmel, Altera, Cirrus Logic, Intel, Marvell, NXP, Samsung, LG, MediaTek, Qualcomm, Sony Ericsson, Texas Instruments, nVidia, Freescale... and many others.

Some companies that have received a license to produce ARM processors create their own versions of cores based on ARM architecture. Examples include: DEC StrongARM, Freescale i.MX, Intel XScale, NVIDIA Tegra, ST-Ericsson Nomadik, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Texas Instruments OMAP, Samsung Hummingbird, LG H13, Apple A4/A5/A6 and HiSilicon K3.

Today they work on ARM-based processors virtually any electronics: PDA, Cell phones and smartphones, digital players, portable game consoles, calculators, external hard disks and routers. They all contain an ARM core, so we can say that ARM - mobile processors for smartphones and tablets.

ARM processor represents a SoC, or "system on a chip". An SoC system, or “system on a chip,” can contain in one chip, in addition to the CPU itself, other parts full-fledged computer. This includes a memory controller, an I/O port controller, a graphics core, and a geopositioning system (GPS). It may also contain a 3G module, as well as much more.

If we consider a separate family of ARM processors, say Cortex-A9 (or any other), it cannot be said that all processors of the same family have the same performance or are all equipped with a GPS module. All these parameters strongly depend on the chip manufacturer and what and how he decided to implement in his product.

What is the difference between ARM and X86 processors?? The RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) architecture itself implies a reduced set of instructions. Which accordingly leads to very moderate energy consumption. After all, inside any ARM chip there are much fewer transistors than its counterpart from the x86 line. Don't forget that in the SoC system everything peripherals located inside a single chip, which allows the ARM processor to be even more energy efficient. The ARM architecture was originally designed to calculate only integer operations, unlike x86, which can work with floating point calculations or FPU. It is impossible to clearly compare these two architectures. In some ways, ARM will have an advantage. And somewhere it’s the other way around. If you try to answer the question in one phrase: what is the difference between ARM and X86 processors, then the answer will be this: the ARM processor does not know the number of commands that the x86 processor knows. And those that do know look much shorter. This has both its pros and cons. Be that as it may, lately everything suggests that ARM processors are beginning to slowly but surely catch up, and in some ways even surpass conventional x86 processors. Many openly declare that ARM processors will soon replace the x86 platform in the home PC segment. As we already know, in 2013 several world-famous companies completely abandoned the further production of netbooks in favor of tablet PCs. Well, what will actually happen, time will tell.

We will monitor the ARM processors already available on the market.

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Gone are the days when the name MediaTek meant nothing to the vast majority of users. But even for those who heard about it, it was associated with continuous glitches of Chinese phones.

However, over time, this company from Taiwan became stronger and began to produce processors for smartphones that were able to compete with other market participants. This naturally aroused interest among serious companies involved in the production of smartphones.

But Qualcomm from America did not sit still and managed to somewhat push such a monster as Texas Instruments out of the market. As a result of this, they carved out a significant piece of the market for themselves. So, for smartphones, which processors should you give preference to? Let's try to find the answer to this question.

The specialization of both companies is the development of processors. At the same time, none of them is engaged in the production of these products independently. For this purpose, they attract, for example, silicon giants such as TSMC. This company owns simply gigantic factories specializing in the production of semiconductor crystals.

Processors by these companies are developed for gadgets of different price categories. They took as a basis such a processor architecture as ARM, which has fundamental differences from the computer x86. That's probably all the similarities between these developers. These direct competitors have a single field of activity. But they approach issues related to the development of their own products and their promotion in different ways.

Positive and negative sides of Qualcomm processors

The chips that are being developed for smartphones by the American company have many positive qualities:

• Fine technological process. The American manufacturer has a constant desire to transfer the existing architecture to an updated technical process. And they do this at the slightest opportunity. To begin with, processors manufactured using the best technological standards are used on flagship smartphone models. And gradually more affordable products are being transferred to them.
• Using self-developed kernels. When creating the best SoCs for flagship models, Qualcomm developers don't limit themselves to using stock ARM microarchitecture. They refine them in order to increase the performance of hardware resources and improve their optimization.
• Its own graphics subsystem. In Qualcomm chipsets, graphics processing is handled by GPUs from the Adreno series, developed by the company. She develops engineering ideas, and the finished product is launched into series. This is what helps increase the performance of leading GPUs. And this happens faster than competitors.
• Application of cellular modules high power . Snapdragon chips have better communication modem parameters because their development takes into account all new technological trends. For example, the introduction of support for LTE Cat. 12 began before it began to be provided by cellular operators. In addition, Qualcomm modems support a larger number of network standards compared to MTK.
• Energy optimization. The company's specialists not only work on solving productivity issues, but also pay a lot of attention to energy efficiency. Even in cases where it is associated with one technological process. For example, the transition from Snapdragon 820 to 821 allowed not only to speed up the chips by several percent, but also helped reduce energy consumption by the same few percent. And this is with minimal differences in the architecture of the models.

Now about the disadvantages of Qualcomm products:

High price threshold. An inevitable consequence of the constant use of advanced technologies is the expenditure of funds for implementation, as well as testing. This is what explains the high cost of the best Qualcomm solutions. So, when put into operation, the cost of the best Snapdragon processor 821 for 2016 smartphones was $70.

The complexity of the bootloader structure. The bootloader is usually called the mechanism with which the hardware starts, as well as the OS of smartphones. Its structure for Snapdragon chips is somewhat complex. The same can be said about the operating algorithm. This does not affect daily work, but if there is a need to restore the “brick”, the procedure becomes more complicated.

A small number of budget solutions. At the forefront of the company are chips for flagship smartphones, which are constantly being improved, made more powerful and more economical. But there is no longer enough time left for budget decisions. More recently, affordable Qualcomm smartphones used three processor models: Snapdragon 410, 400 and 200.

Positive and negative indicators of MediaTek processors

And Taiwanese chipsets have their advantages:

• Low cost. The company's initial focus was on cheap solutions, and it managed to gain a strong foothold in this niche. But even the top models of MTK processors are not very expensive. Thus, the flagship Helio X20 can be purchased at the price of mid-class models from competitors.
• Big variety. MediaTek specialists are constantly concerned about improving the company's products. For this reason, the model range is often updated. It contains a small number of chipsets for flagship products. But in middle category the abundance cannot but rejoice. The same can be said about the budget category. The company has a large number of SoC models.
• Stock graphics. The bulk of MediaTek chips use basic versions of Mali graphics cores from ARM Corporation. Thanks to the presence of a reference version of the microarchitecture, it is easier for developers to optimize games for it. The same cannot be said about Adreno. In addition, it is Mali graphics that Samsung uses for its chips, which makes it a priority for developers in the adaptation process.

To be fair, it must be said that MediaTek processors have many disadvantages:

• Using Basic Cortex Cores. The company does not have the resources to improve the microarchitecture of processors. This forces developers to use standard kernels for chips. Having the same frequency, they are inferior to custom microarchitectures from Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm.
• Presence of configuration imbalance. Concerned with improving battery life without compromising the commercial appeal of the product, MediaTek did not choose the best the best way development. At the development stage, their processors are impressive, but when it comes to practice, not everything turns out as intended. Let's give an example. To optimize charge consumption in Helio X20 series processors, engineers implemented three clusters of cores with different architectures, frequencies and TDPs. This was done instead of developing a more elegant power supply mechanism. At the same time, the nuance was not taken into account that advertising 10 cores is more effective than four, even if they are highly effective. Another disadvantage that affects the hardware balance is the not-so-optimal selection of the graphics subsystem configuration. And although MediaTek uses the latest Mali GPU models, the selected options cannot be called the best. To make this clearer, let's take specific models. So, for the top-end Helio X25, as for the Exynos 8890, the Samsung S7 uses the Mali T880. But the Korean model uses the T880 MP12 configuration, and the MTK uses the T880 MP4. This means that the number of active blocks in the latter is three times less. This, naturally, entails a 3-fold reduction in productivity.
• Lag in terms of technological processes. Saving is a common way of doing business for MediaTek. That is why they are in no hurry to make investments to develop production at partner factories. Moreover, they do not have the resources for this. The consequence of this is that they are not given priority access to the best assembly lines. This means that the production of MTK chipsets is carried out using more crude and outdated technological processes. This especially applies to processors for flagship series models.
• Low level of developer support. Over the past few years, there has been an improvement in the situation, but the problems associated with MediaTek developer support are not over yet. The consequence of this is that smartphone manufacturers sometimes fail to receive updated drivers along with developer libraries in a timely manner. And this does not allow us to produce smartphones that have new version OS. In addition, OS updates for previous models are delayed. And if the budget MT6580 has an Android 6 core, then the flagship MT6795 does not have it.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to say unequivocally what to choose, no matter how hard you want. Both MediaTek and Qualcomm have pros and cons. You can try to understand something by breaking it down by groups of processors. And then the following will happen:

1. Budget price category. There are no special differences between the products from these manufacturers. Both developers create solutions that are sufficient to solve basic problems. That is, we can talk about parity here. The cost of MTK models is often lower, but this is most often explained by the fact that there are simply a lot of them. We can say that the priority in this price niche still belongs to MediaTek.
2. Consideration of the average price box allows us to talk about leveling the advantage of the Taiwanese company. Models from Qualcomm located closer to the upper limit of this price segment features a more powerful level of graphics and The best decision the issue of optimizing energy consumption. However, the performance indicator for both is the same. And we can say that at this point the companies have a draw.
3. The processors used in flagship models are the prerogative of Qualcomm. According to this indicator, the company is a leader among Android smartphones. And today's reality is such that MediaTek cannot offer anything worthy in this segment.

And it turns out that the consumer must make his own choice in accordance with his preferences and needs.

Until recently, MediaTek was associated by most users with buggy Chinese smartphones, but didn’t say anything to the others. But as time passed, the Taiwanese manufacturer became stronger, gained experience, and now their processors are already installed in a huge number of smartphones from the most serious players in the market. But the American manufacturer Qualcomm did not stand still - their Snapdragon processors are recognized, occupying a huge percentage of the market. At one time, they even managed to oust such a giant as Texas Instruments. So which processor is better to choose a smartphone with - MTK or Snapdragon? We will try to give the answer in this article.

What do these companies have in common?

Both manufacturers Qualcomm and MediaTek are engaged only in the development of processors, and their final production is carried out at the facilities of TSMS factories. These are huge factories specializing in the production of crystals. Also, both companies are developing processors for smartphones of all price niches, and both have ARM architecture (which is radically different from that used in personal computers x86). This is where the similarities end, which is remarkable, because companies are fighting in the same market, but they develop and promote their products to the masses in completely different ways.

Advantages and disadvantages of MediaTek

The Taiwanese company produces processors that have a number of positive features:

• A huge number of products. The company initially produced processors only for budget smartphones, but the company there is a constant work, why the lineup expanding every month. True, there is still no wide choice in the flagship segment, but mid-range and budget models a huge quantity is offered;
• Extremely low price. The company was best positioned to gain a foothold in the budget segment, since the price of their processors made it possible to sell smartphones at ridiculous prices. The cost of even the most powerful processors Helio does not exceed the price of mid-range solutions from other manufacturers;
• Built-in graphics. Most often, most MTK chips are equipped with Mali graphics chips, which are manufactured by ARM. The architecture of the graphics cores is a reference one, thanks to which developers can easily optimize their games and applications for it, which is much more difficult to do with Adreno. By the way, Samsung also installs Mali graphics in its smartphones, so developers try to adapt games for it first of all.

MTK processors also have a lot of disadvantages:

• Not the best configurations. In order to attract more buyers while maintaining performance and autonomy at the proper level, the company chose a rather crooked path, which is why in practice the processors show far from the most brilliant results that are offered on paper. For example, the Helio processor uses 3 clusters of cores, the microarchitecture of which is different, as well as the clock frequency. 10 cores are, of course, easier to advertise, but in reality they turned out to be slower than the four energy-efficient ones in the Snapdragon 820;
• Cortex cores. For financial reasons, the company cannot improve the microarchitecture, which is why it has to use standard cores in processors. This makes their products weaker than competitors from Qualcomm, Apple or Samsung;
• Hardware poorly balanced. For example, the Mali T880 MP4 video accelerator has three times fewer active units, which means three times less performance;
• Poor support from developers. This situation has recently begun to improve, but developers still have many problems with support for MTK processors. This results in producers receiving late necessary drivers, which is why you have to install old version Android or release updates on time;
• Outdated technical process. MediaTek does not have the ability to invest in process development, so they rarely get the opportunity to work with the most modern assembly lines. Because of this, processors are manufactured using outdated technologies, which is especially true for flagship models.

Advantages and disadvantages of Qualcomm

American processors have more significant advantages over MediaTek:

• Using your own kernels. It uses ready-made Cortex cores, but Qualcomm specialists carry out their own modifications to improve performance and optimize power consumption;
• Its own graphics. Qualcomm processors have their own subsystem, called Adreno, for graphics processing. Qualcomm is entirely responsible for its creation, controlling the process from the first drawings to launch into serial production. This allows you to connect graphics and processor better than competitors;
• Higher levels of autonomy. The manufacturer tries to make its processors not only powerful, but also energy efficient, constantly working on this indicator with each new model. For example, after the 820 processor was replaced by the 821 version, it became slightly faster, but at the same time it began to consume less power. This is especially interesting, because there are practically no differences in architecture;
• Work is also underway on the power of cellular modules. Modems used in Qualcomm processors are developed taking into account the latest technologies. A striking example is LTE Cat technology. 12, which is supported by many modern smartphones, and here mobile operators They don’t yet have this technology. Also, modems from Americans support much more cellular standards than their Taiwanese competitors;
• Modern technical process. Manufacturer Qualcomm is trying to constantly improve production, constantly moving to more sophisticated technical processes. New technologies are first tested on the most expensive devices, after which more affordable products are introduced into new production.

But there was a fly in the ointment here:

• A small number of solutions for the budget segment. The company is trying to produce high-quality processors mainly for flagship solutions, making them faster and more energy efficient, but budget smartphones much less attention is paid. Until recently, Qualcomm had only three budget processors - 200, 400 and 410. By the way, their price is significantly higher than that from the Taiwanese manufacturer;
• High price. Since the company constantly uses modern technologies, improving production, they have to spend enormous amounts of money on their implementation. Because of this, the price of processors is very high. For example, the cost of Snapdragon 821 was $70 in 2016;
• Complex bootloader. The Snapdragon CPU bootloader has a complex architecture. This does not affect during use, but restoring a smartphone from a “brick” state is much more difficult.

Results

It is difficult to finally decide which processors are better; both have a lot of advantages and disadvantages. To make a choice, it is better to group smartphones by price categories.

In the budget niche it is difficult to find the difference. Therefore, both manufacturers make good solutions that allow you to work comfortably with a smartphone. But the cost of devices on MTK is significantly lower. Therefore, the choice here is obvious.

In the middle class the advantages of Taiwanese processors fade into the background. Qualcomm is more energy efficient and has more powerful graphics. But in terms of performance there is not much difference.

And in the flagship category, the choice is obvious - there is only Qualcomm, since it is the leader in this segment of the Android smartphone market. MediaTek cannot yet provide adequate resistance; even the top Helio model does not help. Moreover, the Helio X30 version will not use the most powerful PowerVR GT7400 graphics accelerator, which is almost two times slower than the Adreno 530, which is more than relevant today.

There are many processor manufacturers on the market. Mediatek, AMD, Intel, Texas Instruments. Each of them is trying to make their processors popular, to make the company and brand recognizable. Today we will talk about MediaTek. This brand is familiar to you, and there are a number of reasons for this. In the mobile market MediaTek processors since 2009. And it was over the past two years that they managed to become popular and famous throughout the world.

The company decided to develop the middle segment - because they do not have enough licenses for anything larger - for Asia this is correct solution. Especially when at that time Qualcomm already occupied a dominant role in the market.

MediaTek has become a favorite company Chinese manufacturers. For a low price they received a relatively high-quality processor. And to this day, reducing the cost of smartphone components is a key goal more or less famous manufacturers Chinese market.

Today, MediaTek's strategy has not changed. They still keep releasing compromise solutions. For example, MT6592 became the first true 8-core processor in the world. It runs on 8 Cortex A7 cores with a frequency of 2 GHz. The kernels, of course, are not the best, but not bad for the first time. The architecture of all the company’s processors is ARM. By the way, in the Samsung S6 both the processor and the graphics accelerator are also made on ARM architecture. This indicates a certain dependence on ARM, while Qualcomm today creates its own cores (Krait, for example), and Cryo is on the way. What we mean is that Qualcomm still has much greater potential, so that none of you starts thinking about MediaTek’s superiority. Yes, they are leaders in the middle segment, but they are still far from high victories.

Not long ago they showed the world their new Helio X10 and Helio X20 processors. The second, according to colleagues from androidauthority, is the world's first 10-core processor. Helio X20 is also the world's first three-cluster processor. In the first case we have before us budget solution, which includes 4 Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of 2.0 GHz and 4 Cortex-A53 cores of 1.4 GHz. Helio X20 received two Cortex-A72 cores at 2.5 GHz, 4 Cortex-A53 cores at 2.0 GHz and 4 Cortex-A53 cores at 1.4 GHz.
For example, compare it to the Qualcomm 818, which has 4 Cortex-A53 cores at 1.2 GHz, 2 Cortex-A53 cores at 1.6 GHz and four Cortex-A72 at 2 GHz. In this case, Qualcomm's solution looks more attractive.

Memory is also a limiting factor. In the Helio series it is still LPDDR3, while in the 818 it is modern technology LPDDR4.

CorePilot 2.0 technology is responsible for the simultaneous operation of all processors. Its essence lies in the smart distribution of resources. Also, its superiority is that if in other processors of the big.LITTLE architecture 4 powerful cores cannot work simultaneously with weak ones or each works only in conjunction, then in the case of CorePilot the cores can work independently of each other, including GPU. This saves battery up to 50 percent and improves performance by 200%.

Thus, MediaTek is doing well in the mid-range segment, satisfying the needs of the Chinese market. It is unknown how Qualcomm will behave next, because in the event of its disappearance (absorption by AMD or Intel), someone will have to take the leading position.