ARM’s new CPUs and GPUs (Cortex X4, A720, A520, Mali G720)

ARM has announced a whole new line up of new tech and innovation. Chief of these are ARM’s new CPUs and GPUs (Cortex X4, A720, A520, Mali G720). There’s also a new DynamIQ architecture as well.

ARMv9.2

ARMv9.2 is ARM’s latest update to the ARMv9 architecture. The ARMv9 generation was used to build older CPUs like the Cortex X3, A715, A510 and GPUs like the Immortalis G715, Mali G715 and the Mali G610.

The ARMv9.2 is a huge improvement to the older ARMv9 and is used to build ARM’s new CPUs and GPUs (Cortex X4, A720, A520, Mali G720). These CPU cores only have support for 64-bit software, there’s no 32-bit software.

New CPU cores

There are three new CPU cores in this generation. They are the Cortex X4, Cortex A720 and the Cortex A520. ARM has maintained its doctrine of better performance whilst using less battery.

Cortex X4

The Cortex X4 is a prime CPU core that is the successor to the Cortex X3. The X4 is 15% more powerful than the X3 but consume less battery. It is also more efficient and has a lot more CPU bandwidth (2MB L2 cache).

Cortex A720

The Cortex A720 is a performance (big) core that is supposed to succeed the older Cortex A715. These are the primary performance CPU cores on a smartphone so they need to be powerful enough. The A720 is 10% more powerful than the older Cortex A78.

Cortex A520

The A520 is an efficiency (small) core. It is the successor to the A510. The A520 has 8% more performance than it’s predecessor but uses 22% less battery power. It also has improved efficiency and better battery life.

New GPU cores

ARM has introduced three new GPUs in this ARMv9.2 update. They are the Immortalis G720, Mali G720 and the Mali G620.

On these GPUs, ARM maintains their doctrine of more performance and more battery efficiency.

Immortalis G720

The Immortalis name here suggests that this GPU has hardware Ray Tracing on board. Immortalis G720 is a good upgrade over its predecessor, the Immortalis G715. The Immortalis G720 is the most powerful GPU that ARM has ever made. It supports up to 10 cores and even more.

Mali G720

The Mali G720 is the same as the Immortalis G720 but without the Ray Tracing and with less GPU cores. However if an OEM deems it fit, they can activate Ray Tracing on this GPU.

Mali G610

This is the 3rd and final GPU on offer. It is considerably much weaker, lacks Ray Tracing and only supports up to 5 cores.

DynamIQ Architecture (DSU-120)

Traditionally speaking, ARM based SoCs for Android have always maxed out at 8 (octa-core) CPUs. As opposed to big.LITTLE CPU configuration, DynamIQ allows OEMs more flexibility to configure CPUs as they please.

With the DynamIQ DSU-120, OEMs are no longer limited to just 8 CPU cores anymore. They can have up to 14 CPU cores now.

We may soon see SoCs with configuration like 1+2+3+4 or 2+2+3+3 CPU microarchitecture.

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