After launching the Helio P70, MediaTek has announced yet another mobile processor dubbed Helio P90 at a launch event in Beijing, China. Just like the P70, the Helio P90 is fabricated over the 12nm manufacturing process. Although, it packs much better overall performance in terms of CPU as well as GPU. MediaTek Helio P90 is basically a mid-range chipset intended to give flagship-like experience at much lower costs. The notable highlight of this chipset is its dual-core APU and AI accelerator which is quite similar to Huawei’s dual NPU found in the Kirin 980. Here is everything you need to know about the company’s new offering.
MediaTek Helio P90 Delivers Four Times Better AI Performance
Even though the Helio P90 is manufactured over the same 12nm process just like its predecessors, it still packs improvements in various departments. The biggest improvement in Helio P90 is in the Artificial Intelligence department. The mobile chipset can now deliver four times better AI performance than the previous-gen Helio P60 and Helio P70. The Taiwanese manufacturer has included APU 2.0 (AI Processing Unit) to handle all the AI-related tasks. Helio P90’s AI Fusion architecture can allocate AI tasks to either APU, AI accelerator or triple IPU (Image Processing Unit) to outperform other phones in the mid-range category.
With the help of APU 2.0, Helio P90 can optimize display performance by recognizing the type of content that is being displayed on the screen such as movies, sports or games. The chipset also brings real-time AI driven video stabilization. The multi-core AI Processing Unit (APU) will also be used to take high-quality photographs. MediaTek claims that its Helio P90 is better than the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 in terms of AI performance. However, it still likely falls a little behind than the 7nm Snapdragon 855 chipset. If so, MediaTek’s Helio P90 will still be able to bring impressive overall performance to mid-range smartphones.
MediaTek Helio P90 churns out 50% more performance than the previous Helio P70
The 12nm Helio P90 packs eight cores with two Cortex-A75 cores running at 2.2GHz and the remaining six Cortex-A55 cores are clocked at 2GHz speeds. For graphics, the Helio P90 is equipped with a PowerVR GM 9446 GPU churning out 50% more performance than the Helio P70. This mobile chipset can support up to 8 GB of LPDDRX RAM and UFS 2.1 storage. Helio P90 powered devices can experience a maximum display resolution of 2520 x 1080 pixels with an aspect ratio of 21:9. In terms of cameras, the SoC can support up to a single 48MP sensor or a dual 24MP + 16MP camera setup. It also provides 480fps slow-motion recording capabilities with 16MP camera sensors. Furthermore, the new Helio P90 chipset supports Google Lens’s AR features accelerated by its APU. For connectivity, Helio P90 supports Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, 4G Cat. 12 / 13 LTE modem for 600Mbps data speeds, dual 4G VoLTE, ViLTE, 4×4 MIMO, and 3CA.
Since the Helio P90 chipset has already made its way to device makers, we can expect to see smartphones running on it to hit the market sometime in Q1 2019. MediaTek chipsets are largely used in the Asian market to power budget smartphones. This time, the company is also looking to share a major chunk in the Western market which it doesn’t at the moment. MediaTek recently announced its Helio M70 chipset with the support of 5G connectivity. It seems like 2019 is going to be all about 5G and powerful AI.
