MediaTek's flagship mobile phone this year, SoC Tianji 9000, has a strong momentum, and the mass production machine equipped with the platform has not yet been released, and the word of mouth has already stood up, and the new Tianji 9000 configuration is full, with the "competitive flagship" to break the wrist.
Tianji 9000 Where does this confidence come from?
01
The transcendence of kernel performance
Tianji 9000 CPU update is unprecedented, using a three-cluster architecture of 1 super core + 3 large cores + 4 energy efficiency cores - of which the super core uses ARM's latest and strongest X2 core, with a frequency of 3.05GHz; 3 2.85GHz A710 large cores, 4 1.8GHz A510 energy efficiency cores - at first glance, does it look very similar to the CPU architecture of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 next door?
▲ Tianji 9000 CPU architecture illustration / Image source: MediaTek
▲ Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU architecture illustration / Image source: Xiaomi mobile phone Weibo
In fact, the frequency of the super core and large core of the Tianji 9000 is higher than that of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which is directly exchanged for the improvement of performance - there is no doubt that we tested the CPU performance of the two SoCs with GeekBench some time ago, and the result is that whether it is single-core or multi-core, the performance balance of the CPU is significantly offset to the Side of the Tianji 9000.
▲ Tianji 9000 GeekBench score - single core 1266 / multi-core 4317
▲ Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 GeekBench Score - Single Core 1188 / Multicore 3696
Of course, the performance of the CPU does not only depend on the performance of the core itself, but also on the ability to cooperate with other components.
MediaTek to the Tianji 9000 CPU equipped with 8MB L3 L3 cache, 6MB SLC system cache (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 only 6MB, 4MB), you know, the cache can alleviate the "congestion" of data and information exchange, improve the communication capacity between the CPU and the operation and storage, and speed up the reading speed. In addition, MediaTek is equipped with L2 L2 cache in each sub-core, super core X2 1MB, large core 512KB each, especially four energy efficiency cores, each two energy efficiency cores share 512KB L2 cache, and Qualcomm did not give Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 small core a L2 cache.
In addition, this time, the Tianji 9000 not only supports the mainstream LPDDR5 storage of today's flagship, but also precedes the industry to support the updated LPDDR5X, which is said to increase the bandwidth by 36%, and the highest frequency can reach 7500MHz.
The GPU graphics processor of the Tianji 9000 is also very obvious, using ARM's latest flagship Mali-G710 MC10 ten-core GPU, a total of 20 execution units, and the performance improvement is naturally not a problem. In addition, mediatek's HyperEngine 5.0 game engine is blessed, AI-VRS variable rendering, CPU thread optimization, intelligent dynamic frame stabilization, variable refresh rate, ray tracing dual engine, low latency game network and other game optimization technologies are readily available, which has done a lot of work in reducing game power consumption and pursuing frame stabilization.
Some time ago, we tested the Performance of the Tianji 9000 Engineering Machine in GFXBench, and indeed found that there was a good performance.
GFXBench test results:
1080p Manhattan 3.1 离屏：160fps；
1080p Manhattan 3.0 离屏：236fps；
1440p Vulkan off-screen: 44fps;
1440p OpenGL off-screen: 42fps;
If the GPU of the Tianji 9000 is successfully crossed, and the CPU is anti-over crushing, then its AI performance can be said to be a ride.
Qualcomm's hybrid AI architecture is computed collaboratively by CPUs, GPUs, and DSPs, while MediaTek SoCs have built-in independent AI processor APUs. The Tianji 9000 is equipped with MediaTek's fifth-generation energy-efficient APU 590, which has 4 times higher performance and energy efficiency than the previous generation.
In our ETH Zurich AI BenchMark test, we scored a high score of 1058K, which is five times that of Google Tensor, which is now at the top of the list, and a full double of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 that has not yet officially been listed.
ETH Zurich AI BenchMark test results:
Tianji 9000 – 1058K
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – 555K
Google Tensor – 214.7K
▲ ETH AI BenchMark official list
02
The balance between performance and power consumption is the art of flagship
MediaTek's ambition for a new generation of flagship platforms is not only in performance, but also in the need to achieve high performance while balancing power consumption - after all, this year, a fire dragon flagship platform next door has made major mobile phone manufacturers, consumers, and even themselves feel uneasy.
Inside the mobile phone, there are not many heat dissipation structures, especially when playing large-scale games with high-performance requirements, if the SoC also has to heat up indefinitely in a limited space, it will not only make the mobile phone a "hot potato", but also affect the life and safety of the chip and battery. To reduce heat, you have to reduce the performance of the SoC from the source to alleviate the heat, but the performance decline is Caton, since the performance of the flagship chip can not be played out, then why choose the SoC with too high power consumption - this is caught in a paradoxical cycle, mobile phone manufacturers in order to escape this "paradox", they can only be forced to develop a variety of heat dissipation materials and structures to clean up the mess for the SoC.
If chip manufacturers achieve a balance between SoC performance and energy consumption during research and development, and pursue a higher energy consumption ratio, then mobile phone manufacturers do not have to invest too much effort in developing further heat dissipation solutions - so for chip factories, the performance of an SoC is important, but the pursuit of energy consumption ratio should not be left behind.
To make performance and power consumption go hand in hand, Tianji 9000 is not only the first TSMC 4nm process process, but most importantly, it also launched a self-developed "global energy efficiency optimization technology", which comprehensively balances performance and power consumption in light load applications, medium load applications and heavy load applications, covers different IP modules in an all-round way, and optimizes the power consumption of all scenarios.
The role of the intelligent governance engine in the HyperEngine 5.0 game engine is to improve performance, reduce power consumption, and reduce operating power consumption according to the dimensions of scene, content and system. For example, Tianji 9000 supports AI-VRS variable rendering technology, which can automatically detect the characteristics of the screen scene to dynamically adjust the local rendering, and the official announcement can reduce power consumption by up to 15%; in addition, the intelligent control engine will also deconstruct the content, split into multiple threads and optimize, improve the cpu multi-core efficiency, and get up to 5% power consumption optimization; and intelligent dynamic frame stabilization technology, through the global temperature prediction decision system, to allocate resources to stabilize the game frame rate, which can save 9% power and reduce about 2 °C Heat generation, increased 8fps average frame rate, and 75% reduction in jitter rate.
One sentence summary: Tianji 9000 CPU, GPU, APU and other modules are not independent, but organically deployed and cooperated to maximize performance and minimize energy efficiency.
03
Each long plank of the flagship bucket
The Tianji 9000 can be said to be MediaTek's flagship SoC with the most "bucket" so far, and even the ISP image processor, Modem baseband, etc. have been greatly upgraded.
Imagiq 790 image processor and the next door Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, using 3 18-bit ISPs, supporting the simultaneous processing of 3 18-Bit HDR video, 3 triple exposure screens, the important thing is that the Imagiq 790 ISP computing speed is far faster than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 Spectra, the former processing speed of up to 9 billion pixels per second, while the latter only 3.2 billion pixels per second, the two have a 180% difference.
The M80 baseband of the Tianji 9000 conforms to the R16 5G network specification of 3GPP, supports full-frequency Sub6 5G network connection, 3CC multi-carrier aggregation reaches a continuous spectrum of 300MHz, and the theoretical peak rate of the downstream can reach 7Gbps. MediaTek even slammed power consumption into the baseband, using UltraSave 2.0 power saving technology to further reduce the power consumption of 5G communications, compared with the previous generation of flagships, 5G light load power consumption is reduced by 32%, 5G heavy load power consumption is reduced by 27%.
04
It needs to land, and it also needs to look to the future
It is undeniable that MediaTek's flagship SoC Tianji 9000 is beyond the expectations of too many officials: the leapfrogging of GPUs and ISPs, as well as the successful crushing of CPU and AI performance is the focus, but not all of its mission. The Tianji 9000 doesn't just want to be Qualcomm's leading Android flagship SoC, its value lies in the balance of performance and power consumption - so that the performance between multi-IP cores is integrated and optimized.
Tianji 9000 is a key move for MediaTek to impact the flagship market next year, and there is no shortage of new features of "fighting the future", in addition to the latest ARMV9 instruction set, LPDDR5X operation and storage support, as well as global energy efficiency optimization technology, which not only improves performance, but also ensures energy efficiency and power consumption, bringing the most balanced flagship experience.
Whether Tianji 9000 can really shake Qualcomm's flagship status next year and establish the image of MediaTek's flagship SoC, we must rely on the strength of partners - the entry of Tianji 9000 will undoubtedly give major terminal manufacturers more diverse choices, broaden the flagship production line of terminal manufacturers, manufacturers have more choices, and users will benefit more - OPPO, vivo, millet, glory and other terminal manufacturers will launch flagship models based on the Tianji 9000 platform in the future.
SoC as the most core components of mobile terminals such as mobile phones, determines the upper limit of terminal computing performance, display, camera, communication and other functions, and it plays the most direct bridge role with terminal manufacturers and other software and hardware suppliers, MediaTek this year's Tianji 9000 from the inside out to give people a new look, and all this is not overnight, but thick and thin, it needs its own technical accumulation and progress, but also needs to cooperate with its partners and complete.
I also seem to understand why the new generation of Tianji jumped over the "chasm" and jumped from 1200 to 9000.