Snapdragon 720G vs MediaTek Helio G90T. This topic is one that has caused a lot of debates on various social media platforms. I remember quite vividly in 2019, when Xiaomi (trailblazers and risk takers) offered to use the helio g90t and promised great things from this chipset.
A lot of us tech people were skeptical. Like the Israelites, we asked “can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Well yes, actually. Something good did come out of Mediatek. Xiaomi pulled out all the stops to support Mediatek, even going as far as to obtain the source codes and publishing it to developers, adding a cooling system to the phone as well as other measures. Had it failed, both Xiaomi and Mediatek would be staring down a huge loss of revenue and investment. It turns out that it didn’t. Instead, it was a huge success and has gone a long way to rebuilding confidence in the Mediatek brand name.
The 720G on the other hand is Qualcomm’s answer to the G90T question. And a very good answer it has turned out to be.
Today most people are divided between the Snapdragon 720G vs MediaTek Helio G90T. Whilst some persons have already made their decisions as to which is better, this post is for those who haven’t and want to learn which is best for them. Let’s take a good look at both chipsets based on the following parameters:
1. Microarchitecture
2. GPU
3. Process
4. RAM size and speed
5. Display resolution
6. Connectivity
7. Benchmarks
8. ISP (camera)
Let’s kick off…
Snapdragon 720G vs MediaTek Helio G90T
Microarchitecture
The Mediatek Helio G90T is an Octa-core processor with two high-performance Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.05GHz and six power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores clocked at 2.0GHz.
The Snapdragon 720G also has two high-performance Cortex-A76 cores clocked at 2.3 GHz but Qualcomm chose to underclock it’s six power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores by clocking them at 1.6GHz.
High performance cores are for CPU (and GPU intensive tasks) e.g photography and games. They are designed to burn through your battery. Power efficiency cores are for simple everyday tasks. They’re designed to conserve battery.
What this means is that, when you are performing everyday tasks, since they both use the same A55, the G90T will be much faster as it has a better clockspeed of 2.0GHz compared to the 1.6GHz of the 720G. On the other hand, when performing CPU intensive tasks, the SD720G will pull ahead of the G90T because they both use the same A76 CPU design and the 720G has a better clockspeed of 2.3GHz as compared to the 2.05 of the G90T.
One thing to note is that the reduced speed of the A55 cores of the 720G means less battery consumption when using your phone for basic stuff as compared to the G90T but the trade off is that the G90T would be faster in a speed test comparison of every day apps.
Raw processing power advantage goes to the 720G and it saves battery too.
Read: Processor cores in smartphones explained
GPU or Graphics Processing Unit
The G90T has the Mali-G76 3EEMC4 GPU which is clocked at 800MHz. The SD720G has the Adreno 618 which has less shader units and runs at a slower speed. This is no contest. The G90T destroys the 720G here. In gaming, the G90T will render images and graphics 13.78% faster making games more enjoyable. The Adreno 618 is no joke either, it is also super fast at rendering graphics too but it’s going to take a seat behind the Mali-G76 3EEMC4.
The G90T takes this one.
Build process
The build process is the size of the transistors on which an SoC is built. A smaller SoC produces better battery consumption, less heating and (arguably) a better CPU performance.
The Helio G90T is built on an older 12nm process while the snapdragon 720G is built on a much better 8nm process. This makes the 720G much more efficient than then G90T by a big margin as 4nm is too big a difference in terms of the manufacturing process.
The 720g takes this one.
RAM
RAM or random access memory is a temporary store house of data for your CPU to work with. While the size of the RAM is important, what most people don’t know is that the speed of the RAM is what they should look for. A slow 10GB RAM block will bog down your CPUs leading to poor performance. The RAM speed determines how fast your CPU can write data to it as well as read it to extract data while it is working.
Your CPU can also read and write to your memory card. A slow memory card will slow your phone. This is why iPhones do not use memory cards. Trust people, they’ll buy cheap memory cards that are slow and then blame Apple.
The SD720G has a Max Memory of 8GB and Frequency (or speed) of 1866 MHz (1.8GHz). The G90T has a max Memory of 10GB and a speed of 2133MHz (2.1GHz). They are both LPDDR4x RAMs and support eMMC 5.1 and UFS 2.1 external memory. Both do not support ECC memory.
Both RAMs are fast but the G90T takes it.
Read: Storage in Smartphones explained
Display
Resolution can be defined as the sharpness and clarity (how clear) of an image.
The G90T supports full Full High Definition (FHD+) or 1080p while the 720G supports Quad High Definition (QHD) or 1440P.
This round goes to the 720G.
Connectivity
The G90T comes with WiFi 5 while the 720G carries WiFi 6. Obviously the WiFi 6 is better.
The G90T comes with Bluetooth 5.0 while the 720g comes with Bluetooth 5.1. Again 720g wins.
As for the modems (for internet): The snapdragon 720G’s X15 LTE modem provides a download speed of 800 Mbps and an upload speed of 150 Mbps. In contrast, the G90T’s modem provides a download speed of 600 Mbps and an upload speed of 150 Mbps. The 720G again.
ISP
The image signal processor is like the occipital lobe in our human brain. Your eyes can see but if your brain doesn’t interpret then the eyes are useless. This is why when alcohol fogs your brain, the eyes start to see double. There’s nothing wrong with the eyes but the brain’s function is addled. It’s the same here.
The ISP coordinates all the sensors, collects images from each one and combines to produce the final result. Each SoC has a certain limit it can go.
The G90T comes with the 3x ISP which supports Up to 24 + 16 MP dual cameras and Up to 64 MP single camera. the snapdragon 720G comes with the Spectra 350L ISP which has support for a single camera with capabilities of shooting at 192MP and dual 24 + 24 MP set up.
For video, both record 4K ultra HD at 30FPS.
The 720 takes this one.
Benchmarks
Antutu:
SD720G – 272,276
Helio G90T – 281,056
Geekbench:
SD720G – 570 (single) 1668 (multi-core)
Helio G90T – 494 (single) 1594 (multi-core)
Take note that Benchmarks are mostly concerned with performance. On Geekbench which tests only CPU cores, the SD720G has better scores. On Antutu on the other hand which tests CPU, GPU and RAM, the G90T has better benchmark scores because it has a far better GPU and a faster RAM. The scores are not that far apart.
Conclusion
If Gaming is your thing, the G90T wins!!!
But if you want the full package, especially in other aspects like display, battery consumption, heating, connectivity, camera and video. The 720G is better.
If you are looking for an all-rounder with arguably better support. Then the 720G is your go to SoC.
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