Taiwan-headquartered MediaTek just announced its latest Helio P65 chipset, Phonecorridor understands. The new chip is coming with faster CPU cores, in addition to an enhanced NPU. But it can’t be termed a full upgrade over the older Helio P60 chipset (as well as its close sibling, P70).
The CPU of the MediaTek Helio P65’s has two Cortex-A75 cores, coupled with six Cortex-A55 cores. Pitting these specs against those of Helio P60 or P70, the 2 chips employed four A73 & four A53 and are from an older generation, but with another proportion of big/small cores.
According to MediaTek’s partner, ARM, the world’s leading semiconductor IP supplier, the A75 is on average 22 per cent faster in comparison with an A73. The A55 has a similar 18 per cent boost over the A53 cores. Hence, you can look forward to higher single-threaded performance; the multi-threaded score will, however, be lower.
The GPU will switch to ARM Mali-G52 cores, and not the more robust G72 cores that are made use of in the Helio P60/P70. It is featuring the same Bifrost architecture, which will translate to a dip in 3D performance.
As regards the NPU, MediaTek states that it is twice as fast as the former mainstream Helio chipset (so it will beat both the P60 and P70 chips), and is 30 per cent faster in comparison with what is in its direct competitor chipset.
Some improvements were also made to the camera-related hardware. It gets hardware support for 48-megapixel Quad Bayer sensors, along with Multi-Frame Noise reduction. The new chipset comes with the capability to create bokeh shots with 1 or 2 cameras.
Video encodings can be done in H.265 format, and it brings Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) and Rolling Shutter compensation (RSC). The MediaTek P65 only has support for recording up to 1080p/60 videos, but no 4K. With the secure ISP, you get to enjoy fast camera-based face unlock.
In the connectivity department, the chipset has dual 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth v5.0 (an upgrade from v4.2), and Wi-Fi 5. Indoor navigation also gets an upgrade with the new GNSS engine.
The P65, unlike the Helio P60 and P70, does not have the capability to be connected to UFS storage; it only supports connection to eMMC 5.1. It does not have support for dual channel LPDDR4x RAM, too.
The comparison chart below highlights the differences in the specs of the Helio P65 and P70:
| Helio P65 | Helio P70 | |
| CPU (big) | 2x Cortex-A75 (at 2.0 Gigahertz) | 4x Cortex-A73 (2.1GHz) |
| CPU (little) | 6x Cortex-A55 | 4x Cortex-A53 |
| GPU | Mali-G52 2EEMC2 | Mali-G72 MP3 |
| RAM | 1x LPDDR4x | 2x LPDDR4x |
| Storate | eMMC 5.1 | UFS 2.1 & eMMC 5.1 |
| Camera | 48MP Quad Bayer with Dual 16MP | 48MP, with 20MP & 16MP |
| Video | H.265, EIS,1080p/60, RSC | H.264, EIS, 1080p |
| Display | 1080p+ (21:9 aspect ratio) | 1080p+ (18:9 aspect ratio) |
| Connectivity | GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou | GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou |
The MediaTek Helio P65 may power mid-range smartphones, though we wouldn’t expect anything too premium (this is the domain of the powerful Helio P90).
Sources: MediaTek
