Today, The Taiwanese chip maker Mediatek announced the most powerful SoC of the X20 family: the Helio X27. This new processor takes over the X25 as the currently highest-end SoC in the X20 Series, and it’s aimed for high end smartphones. Let’s see what this new product brings to the table.
The MediaTek Helio X27 (MT6797X), like its predecessors, provides three processor clusters, each designed to more efficiently handle different types of workloads. The premium MediaTek Helio X27 features a maximized clock frequency across all three clusters, with an unequaled maximum of 2.6GHz on the most powerful ARM Cortex-A72 cluster. Much like adding gears to vehicles, dividing the cores into three clusters provides a more efficient allocation of tasks for optimum performance and extended battery life.
In addition, the MediaTek Helio X27 includes the latest MiraVision EnergySmart Screen to further enhance power efficiency. In the camera department, it features a built-in 3D depth engine for depth of field processing, as well as multi-scale de-noise engines for faster response time between shots and unprecedented detail, color, and sharpness — even under extreme conditions.
The display can be refreshed at up to 120 fps for crisp and responsive scrolling of web content and maps, and with an ARM Mali-T880 MP4 GPU up to 875 MHz, it yields uncompromised performance in games with high-resolution graphics.
A few of the more important manufacturers have been watching with big interest at this SoC, but some of the most promising emerging brands from China have moved towards this solution. In particular, we’ve learned that UMi, the company which already made a deal with Mediatek for the launch of the first Helio P20 smartphone (the UMi Plus E), may as well launch the first Helio X27-powered smartphone very soon. Likely this is because of high sales of the Plus E having not gone unnoticed by MediaTek.
We also know the Chinese company has a device ready to be released in December, which is labelled as the “Z” according to UMi official Facebook. Might this be powered by the new X27 processor?
We will see what the next days and weeks will tell us, but one thing is for sure: exciting times ahead with those X27-powered smartphones ready to be unleashed!
It almost feels like the CPU which was designed for general processing of tasks, is now turning into a more specialised work horse. Like we have a GPU electronics specifically for 3D gaming, I’m sure we’ll get to the point where we have specific chips for separate tasks. E.g. we might have a specific chip for general UI of the Android system, another for the browser, maybe one specifically for music, another for video, a few others for very specific tasks and then a few general purpose ones for everything else. This means that each chip can be optimised specifically for the application so it uses just enough power and has enough performance for the task at hand.