MediaTek Preparing New Octa-Core Processor To Take On Snapdragon 800/805

With the recent announcement of ARM’s new Cortex A17 series MediaTek have wasted no time in sampling new processors based on the Cortex A17 design. Engadget reports that MediaTek already have new octa-core processors ready that consist of four 2.2-2.5GHz Cortex A17 cores and four 1.7GHz Cortex A7 cores in a big.LITTLE configuration. These new SoCs will come with a PowerVR Series6 GPU which should provide more than enough GPU horsepower for most people’s needs.

While the Cortex A17 series was designed to revitalise the mid range market MediaTek are preparing to take on the high-end market with their new Cortex A17 based SoCs which will be known as the MT6595. The MT6595 will be taking on the likes of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 and 805 as well as older Exynos designs. The MT6595 is going to take advantage of heterogeneous multi-processing meaning the SoC will use all eight cores for the most intensive applications and will use just one or two of the low power A7 “LITTLE” cores for basic activities. The end results is unsurprisingly a faster and more power efficient product compared to older MediaTek SoCs.

MediaTek are also claiming to be the first octa-core LTE SoC with a H.265 Ultra HD codec built into the platform. This offers impressive 4K2K video recording and playback capabilities. Sampling of the MT6595 SoCs begins in the first half of this year and products with them in should start arriving in the second half.

Image courtesy of Engadget