Mediatek MT8127 vs Mediatek MT6592 vs Mediatek MT8321

Mediatek MT8127

The MediaTek MT8127 is a cheap ARM-SoC (System on a Chip) that is mainly used in Android based tablets. It is manufactured in 28 nm and integrates a quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 processor clocked at 1.5 GHz (typically), a ARM Mali-450 MP4 graphics card (at 600 MHz) and a single channel 32 Bit DDDR3-1333 memory controller (max. 5.3 GB/s).

Processor

The ARM Cortex-A7 design is a 32-Bit entry level core with a much lower performance per MHz than the Cortex-A9. Therefore, the MT8127 is only positioned in the lower mid-range similar to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400.

Features

The MT8127 integrates function blocks for full HD videos (en- and decoders), WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and FM radio. Camera modules are supported up to 13 MP.

Power Consumption

Due to the low clocked Cortex-A7 cores and the small GPU, the SoC is using not much power and therefore also suited for small tablets.

Mediatek MT6592

The MediaTek MT6592 is a mid-range 28 nm SoC for Android smartphones and tablets. It was announced near the end of 2013 and is manufactured in 28 nm. It includes 8 Cortex-A7 processor cores that are typically clocked up to 1.7 - 2.0 GHz. Furthermore, the SoC integrates an ARM Mali-450 GPU at 700 MHz, WLAN, a video decoder for up to 4K content, a LPDDR3 memory controller at 666 MHz, and a 2G/3G (UMTS/HSPA+) radio.

Although the MT6592 offers eight relatively high clocked CPU cores compared to other SoCs, its performance in day-to-day usage is a bit lower, as the Cortex-A7 cores offer slower performance per clock and only a few apps are able to make use of all 8 cores simultaneously. Modern dual-core (e.g., Apple A7) or quad-core (e.g., Cortex A15 or Snapdragon 800) SoCs can be clearly faster in everyday scenarios.

The integrated ARM Mali-450 MP4 GPU offers 4 graphics clusters that are clocked at a high 700 MHz. However, the performance of the GPU is somewhat below that of a Tegra 4 or Adreno 320. Also like the Nvidia rival, the Mali-450 lacks support for OpenGL ES 3.0.

Mediatek MT8321

The Mediatek MT8321 is a low-cost ARM SoC (System on a Chip) mainly used in smartphones. It is most likely manufactured in 28 nm and integrates a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor and a ARM Mali-400 MP2. The CPU cores are clocked at up to 1.3 GHz while the GPU is clocked at up to 500 MHz. Furthermore, the chip includes a EDGE / HSPA+ / WDCDMA radio and 802.11 b/g/n WiFi. The integrated single channel memory controller supports LPDDR3 RAM.

Performance

Since the Cortex-A7 architecture is somewhat slower than a Krait or Cortex-A9 design at the same clock speeds, the performance of the MT8121 is just below Nvidia's Tegra 3 or the Samsung Exynos 4412. The PowerVR SGX 544 is also just a low-cost solution not designed for ultra-high resolution displays or very demanding games.