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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 01 2017, @11:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-core-USED-to-refer-to-a-single-bit-of-memory dept.

MediaTek has released more details of an upcoming 10-core SoC:

MediaTek first unveiled the Helio X30—its next-generation high-end SoC—last fall, but today at Mobile World Congress the Taiwanese company announced its commercial availability. The Helio X30 is entering mass production and should make its debut inside a mobile device sometime in Q2 2017.

The Helio X30, like the Helio X20 family before it, incorporates 10 CPU cores arranged in a Max.Mid.Min tri-cluster configuration. Two of ARM's latest A73 CPU cores replace the two A72s in the Max cluster, which should improve performance and reduce power consumption. The Mid cluster still uses 4 A53 cores, but they receive a 10% frequency boost relative to the top-of-the-line Helio X27. In the X30's Min cluster we find the first implementation of ARM's most-efficient A-series core. The A35 consumes 32% less power than the A53 it replaces (same process/frequency), while delivering 80%-100% of the performance, according to ARM. With a higher peak frequency of 1.9GHz, the X30's A35 cores should deliver about the same or better performance than the X20's A53 cores and still consume less power.

Also at Tom's Hardware, entitled "The 10nm Helio X30 May Be MediaTek's First Truly Competitive High-End Chip".

While some smartphone SoCs like the X30 are a bit of an exception due to cluster configurations, there are going to be many CPUs with 8+ cores sold in 2017. Some examples that come to mind: AMD's Ryzen 7 desktop CPUs, the AMD APUs in the Xbox One, PS4, and PS4 Pro (with 7 cores usable in these consoles), and other smartphone SoCs like the Exynos 7 Octa 7880, which uses equivalent cores rather than clusters. Will games and popular applications be able to exploit this newfound glut of cores?

Related: Samsung's Exynos 8895 to be the First 10nm Chip on the Market


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:58PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday March 01 2017, @10:58PM (#473592) Journal

    This Helio chip is good news for smartphones. That it is on a 10nm die may be bigger news than anything about the chip itself. Ought to help push desktop CPU manufacturers to shrink more. Though, 14nm is a big leap from 22nm and larger.

    I could use updated desktops and laptops. x86 stuff I have is pushing 10 years of age. No SSE4, which wasn't a problem until I ran into a game binary that requires it. I've been looking at what's available and thinking about it. The question is, wait a bit longer for the AMD Ryzen and 10nm chips? Also have to figure out where I want to be on the performance vs low power curve, and am favoring low power, but not too low.

    I really like not having fans droning away all day long, however cheap stick computers with those Atom X5-Z8300 CPUs like the Asus Vivostick are a mite too sluggish to suit me. I got one for under $100, and found it able to play videos on Youtube and run high end games at very low graphics settings. Had to cut the screen size down, 1920x1080 was pushing it too much. It wasn't the performance, so much as a lack of RAM. But at that price, and at a peak power usage of only 6W, lack of performance is totally forgivable. Works just fine for checking email. The NUC is more muscular but gets pricey in a hurry. Or there are these Zotac PCs. There's this Taiwanese manufacturer named Giada that has some interesting offerings I can get through NewEgg. Also on NewEgg is this Kangaroo Mobile Desktop. Another company I watch is Polywell. I have a Soekris I use as a web server, but those computers aren't suitable for desktops. Tried a Beagleboard a while back, and while I was able to get Ubuntu running on it, it was unstable, probably because the USB power supply I'd gotten for it wasn't powerful enough.

    Or I can just get a plain old laptop. It's really tough to beat a commodity laptop for value, with it by definition including a screen. Computer retailers have used the old "monitor sold separately" trick since the 1980s to make systems seem less expensive, and the Zotacs, Polywells, Kangaroos, Giadas and others all employ that.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday March 02 2017, @03:57AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday March 02 2017, @03:57AM (#473720) Journal

    Ought to help push desktop CPU manufacturers to shrink more.

    Not necessarily. AMD's fortunes are dependent on the fabrication entity they spun off in 2008, GlobalFoundries. Only Intel is independent. The only other "desktop chip" I can think of is POWER9, and that's also made by GlobalFoundries.

    Now we know that Intel is sticking to 14nm for roughly 4 generations of chips (you could say 3.5 if they move some chips to 10nm early). They killed Tick-Tock. Did they do that because AMD didn't represent serious competition, or because their 10nm process is not mature and yields aren't ideal? I'd say the latter. They also compete with Nvidia (Xeon Phi) and IBM/ARM/etc.

    We are nearing the end of the line for "easy" shrinking. 10nm works, 7nm seems to be feasible. 5nm and below? Unknown. Carbon nanotubes or other materials might need to be thrown into the equation. And it's an economic equation [wikipedia.org].

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