Flashback: MediaTek's Helio X20 chip with 10-core CPU was ahead of their time

13 August 2023
The company identified a flaw in the typical big.LITTLE setup and proposed a solution with three clusters - and it was right.

Sort by:

It sux.

    rizki1, 13 Aug 2023Stronger? Yes.. but people don't want this chip becaus... moreSame people (you included) recomend weaker cpu like G99, G96, Dimensity 810, 700 etc. Sd 695 was ahead of its time, only soc under $200 to offer incredible battery life, Perfomant A78 cores, decent gpu etc. So 4k has always been excuse to bash sd 695.

      • ?
      • Anonymous
      • 0p}
      • 13 Aug 2023

      rizki1, 13 Aug 2023Don't you know that low end, mid end phones are domina... moreIphone 14 pro max alone sell more than all these combined.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • 0p}
        • 13 Aug 2023

        KondriX, 13 Aug 2023The market above $850 is pretty small, the majority of peop... moreMarket above $850 is super small.

        Samsung S + Z Series = more than 20 million phones
        All iphones 14 outside USA are more than $850, not even counting Plus and Pros.
        Huawei flagships
        Asus Rog
        Xperia 1 and 5
        Pixel Pro
        Mi series
        Honor Magic

        Only android phones are easily more than 30 million devices here.
        Add iphones to the math.

        Basically means that phones like X90/90 Pro are either flop or no one is buying them before huge price cuts.

        I bet last year the Rog phones with sanpdragon had better sales than mediatek version

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • 0p}
          • 13 Aug 2023

          rizki1, 13 Aug 2023Stronger? Yes.. but people don't want this chip becaus... more690 has 4K recording. Funny is the fact some even prefer 765 over it, when 690 has A77 cores.

          695 is chip with highest battery endurance ever.
          Since 4g1 is its downclocked version, this chip could make phone score almost 180h here, if not paired with MiUI and EmUI obviously.

            They should bring back the X series since the G series are probably dying soon as we're on the G99 and G88 and these are probably the last of their series

              Anton., 13 Aug 2023What planet do you live on???Don't you know that low end, mid end phones are dominated by Mediatek? Quick facts, Galaxy A34, GT 10 Pro, Redmi Note 12 Pro etc are only a few that are trending on GSMArena. And sold millions.

                • c
                • cyber
                • S2D
                • 13 Aug 2023

                this chip was a heating disaster represented by xiaomi note 4 mtk edition,battery life was terrible too

                  KondriX, 13 Aug 2023The market above $850 is pretty small, the majority of peop... moreWhat planet do you live on???

                    Anonymous, 13 Aug 2023"These days Kirin is out of the game, Exynos dropped o... moreThe market above $850 is pretty small, the majority of people buy mid-end phones and, as far as I know MediaTek sells more chips than Qualcomm.

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • B42
                      • 13 Aug 2023

                      Do a Flashback article where you go over the best mobile devices from Sharp.

                        Anonymous, 13 Aug 2023Ppl bash much stronger chips like 690/695Stronger? Yes.. but people don't want this chip because it doesn't support wifi 6, 4k etc

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • 0p}
                          • 13 Aug 2023

                          rizki1, 13 Aug 2023720G is enough to play all the popular games on the play st... morePpl bash much stronger chips like 690/695

                            • ?
                            • Anonymous
                            • 0p}
                            • 13 Aug 2023

                            rizki1, 13 Aug 2023720G is enough to play all the popular games on the play st... moreBut ppl here somehow bash 690 and 695 when both are way stronger than even 732

                              rizki1, 13 Aug 2023720G is enough to play all the popular games on the play st... moreCouldn't agree more. Actually I was surprised as I tested it on realme 6 pro (8/128 spec), it could run Mobile Legends at Ultra graphics + High 60 fps in settings. 2 hours into gaming then the fps averaged around 48-55 fps.
                              Bonus point: you could instal Pixel 4's gCam app into that bloody thing.

                                Zopo Speed 8 was such a different looking beautiful phone - not the regular rectangular shape all phones have with rounded corners. This phone has a nice curvature on the top and bottom. With 2 front firing speakers. This look is forgotten & i really wish it comes back coz it is different.

                                  Sorry Peter, but I disagree with your premise.
                                  The Helio X20 was not a good chipset, and was not ahead of its time. And it's successors while they were improvements, were also destined to fail. I have been pessimistic on this series of chips from Day 1. Whilst, the industry was very optimistic since first announcement, garnering quiet a buzz as it was MediaTek's first foray into the high-end.

                                  Here's why it failed to measure up to the QSD 820, Kirin 960, and Exynos 8890:
                                  - only two big cores
                                  - they were using much worse silicon
                                  - using older Cortex-A72 (it's actually faster than A73 but uses more energy)
                                  - the Cortex-A53 are actually "too slow" as middle cores back in 2016-2017, but they were fine for 2013 era. So it actually needed faster cores to balance the chipset, not slower ones, like the Cortex-A35.
                                  - the Cortex-A35 (a fan favourite of mine) is basically useless on a phone, since the Cortex-A53 can clock very low to handle Phone Idle status too.

                                  Ideally, back in 2016 they could have done a 1+5+2 layout instead (+A73-A73-A53). Use the newer 16nm nodes, small cores which always stay on for Idle Status and running Background tasks, medium cores with a balanced L2 cache run most threads, the large core is used sporadically as certain tasks demand it. The large core or Prime Core is also based on a Cortex-A73 but with a much larger cache, much higher clockspeed, and put on it's own voltage rail. That's what I envisioned, and it only took the chipmakers 6-8 years to catchup to my idea/concept. Meanwhile, Apple is doing it's own thing better than what I could envision and they're dominating in terms of battery life, efficiency, latency, multi-threaded, and single-core performance.

                                    Anonymous, 13 Aug 2023Still using Snapdragon 720G. Good enough unless you are a gamer.720G is enough to play all the popular games on the play store such as Mobile legends, pubg, cod, on high settings.

                                      Its a crime not to put the 2016 Redmi Note 4 which also uses that processor.. its the more popular phone which has 16 million clicks.

                                        It would be great if there is a phone with a back display, it's surely more useful than glyph lights.

                                        Didn't say it's a must, though.

                                          3 of 4