2017 is gonna be the year of the 10nm SoCs. All major chip manufacturers have announced their own 10nm SoCs. Qualcomm has already announced the Snapdragon 835 processor which will be manufactured by Samsung. Mediatek announced the deca-core Helio X30 which will be manufactured by TSMC. Huawei is said to release a Kirin 970, at least this is what the rumors say. I know that we know very little about them, but still with the data that we already know, let us compare them and see who is better.
Number of Cores
Qualcomm, for the Snapdragon 835, is going to release a eight-core processor, which are a 4+4 combination. Mediatek on the other hand, have already gone to deca-cores chips from Helio X20 and Helio X25, so and the new Helio X30 won’t have less. The Helio X30 will consist of four Cortex-A73 cores, four Cortex-A53 cores and two Cortex-A53 cores. The Kirin 970, just like the Kirin 960, we expect to have the same 8-core setup configuration (4 x Cortex-A73 cores+4 x Cortex-A53 cores).
Clock Speed
The SD 835 SoC will have a maximum clock speed of 3.0GHz. But don’t be amazed if you see it and at a lower clock speed, since some some manufacturers like Xiaomi do that. Mediatek has already announced that the Cortex-A73 cores will be able to reach a clock speed of up to 2.8GHz. Now for the Huawei’s Kirin 970, we don;t know the clock speed, but for sure won’t be lower from 2.8GHz – 3.0GHz.
LTE Categories
Qualcomm from what we know, will use a combination of Cat. 13 and Cat. 16, in order to have for download and upload the maximum. Mediatek’s Helio X30 will use a combination of Cat.10 and Cat.12, when the Kirin 970 we guess is gonna use Cat. 12. So from what we see, Snap 835 will be faster.
As a conclusion we can say that the upcoming Snapdragon 835 will offer 27% more performance, Mediatek Helio X30 will have a 43% increase in performance and for Kirin 970, we don’t know yet as all we know is just rumors about the upcoming specs. Of course all these in real life might vary and is better to see in what mobiles we are going to meet them and how they will cooperate.