MediaTek Helio X30: 10 Cores, 10nm Process, Daydream VR Support

MediaTek has added a new high-end chip in its arsenal, the Helio X30, that will serve as a low-cost alternative to Qualcomm’s top-tier and still-difficult-to-come-by Snapdragon 835 SoC. The new tri-cluster Helio chip is formed on high-end 10nm FinFET process technology and will perhaps be the first mid-range SoC to support Google’s Daydream VR platform.

It does excesses on cores, but two of the 10 CPUs inside this tri-cluster chip are Cortex-A73 ticking at 2.5GHz, which means it can get pretty fast should the load demand it. But for the most part, the 2.2GHz 4x Cortex A53 and 1.9GHz 4X Cortex A35 will be at the helms.

As compared to Helio X20, the X30 has more powerful and power-efficient Cortex-A73 (as compared to Cortex-A73) in the performance cluster and higher clocked but more power-efficient Cortex-A35 cores (as compared to Cortex-A53), which implies that it will be able to deliver better performance while consuming lesser power than its predecessor. According to MediaTek, the Helio X30 will consume 50 percent less power than Helio X20 while running unspecified workloads.

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The load distribution will be handled by MediaTek’s updated CorePilot 4.0 technology that has been reconditioned to maximize battery efficiency. The GPU used is PowerVR Series7XT Plus clocked at 800MHz. Just like the recently launched Helio P25, the X30 too will support LPDDR4X RAM interface.

Even though this sounds like a very interesting SoC, MediaTek doesn’t expect this to feature in many phones this year. The Primary reason being that the SoC is already quite delayed owing to the low yield on TSMC’s 10nm process. Helio X30 powered phones will start surfacing in the second quarter of 2017.

Helio X30 Specifications