On Thursday, Nov. 10, on the MediaTek Govt Summit, Adam King, Vice President and Normal Supervisor, Shopper Computing Enterprise Unit, Mediatek, introduced the Kompanio 520 and Kompanio 528 chipsets for entry-level Chromebooks. The brand new chips are the successors of the Kompanio 500, with upgraded CPU, GPU, video codec, higher energy effectivity, and with assist for greater decision show.
For each merchandise, the heterogeneous 8-core CPU unit combines 2 efficiency cores Arm Cortex-A76 and 6 environment friendly core Arm Cortex-A55, a major improve from the Kompanion 500 that options 4 Cortex-A73 and 4 Cortex-A53. The CPU depends on LPDDR4x RAM clocked at 3733MHz.

Adam King, Vice President and Normal Supervisor, Shopper Computing Enterprise Unit, introduced the single-core efficiency enchancment of the brand new Kompanio chips.
The one distinction between the 520 and the 528 is the efficiency cores’ frequency, which is clocked at 2GHz for the 520 and a couple of.2GHz for the 528.
In the course of the presentation, Adam King stated that the single-core efficiency bought an 80% increase whereas the multi-core efficiency is 15% higher, in comparison with the earlier era.
“THE SINGLE-CORE PERFORMANCE GOT AN 80% BOOST COMPARED TO THE PREVIOUS GENERATION”
Mediatek says it has a sizeable benefit towards the Intel Celeron N4500, a widespread non-heterogeneous dual-core Chromebook processor, particularly with regards to performance-per-watt. Consuming much less energy to carry out a given process may be seen as emitting much less carbon (electrical energy manufacturing emits carbon), and greater energy effectivity ought to translate into higher ESG metrics (Environmental, Social, and Governance) in our opinion.
“The sustainability advantages of the MediaTek Kompanio merchandise are important too, particularly in heavy workloads the place MediaTek’s low energy processors generate 40% – 60% much less energy-based greenhouse fuel emissions in comparison with competitor platforms,” stated Victor Tyan, Senior Director, Shopper Computing GTM.

Energy effectivity and efficiency comparability with Intel’s Celeron N4500
On the GPU facet, the Arm Mali-G72 MP3 is changed by the Arm Mali G52 MC2 2EE in each new chips. “Each GPUs [Arm Mali-G72 MP3 & Arm Mali G52 MC2] are very shut by way of efficiency and for most individuals, the efficiency distinction gained’t be noticeable in real-world eventualities. However when you nonetheless need the higher GPU, then Mali-G52 MC2 is the way in which to go”, in accordance with Tech Centurion (Centurion Mark). We’ll have to check to have extra correct outcomes.

MediaTek claims a 20% GPU speedup
The brand new dual-core AI processing unit (APU) delivers AI options akin to AI-driven real-time low-light video noise discount and helps with picture segmentation and tagging used for digital inexperienced display screen and picture high quality enhancement (i.e. shade and distinction tuning optimized for various elements of the picture).
The ISP has been improved with as much as 32 MP assist for the digital camera. This function is leveraged from the smartphone SoCs. OEMs won’t use the very best decision within the close to future, however they’ll scale it down simply to five MP for instance, which is a big enchancment over present laptop computer webcams (largely with 0.7MP webcams).
The upgraded multimedia engine consists of {hardware} VP9 decoding and H.265 encoding, which is an improve from the H.264 encoding and H.264, H.265 / HEVC decoding of the final era (software program VP9). The system helps 60fps Full HD video recording now, an improve from the FHD 30 fps assist within the Kompanio 500. MediaTek claims a 2X efficiency increase for the multimedia unit.
The Kompanio 520 and 528 every assist a Full HD+ show and a Full HD exterior show, which doubles the decision assist in comparison with the earlier era chipsets.
ChromeOS is thought for its good safety observe report and Victor Tyan reminded us that MediaTek works intently with Google to combine the most recent safety features akin to Verified Boot, Constructed-in Virus Safety, and Multi-Consumer Assist with their newest Kompanio 520 and 528 processors.
Conclusion
The Kompanio 520 and 528 processors look very promising by way of efficiency and excessive energy effectivity for the uber-affordable Chromebook phase.
MediaTek insisted on the all-day battery life, a function that helps to alleviate battery life nervousness and permits college students to raised give attention to their work. To show the purpose, the chip maker confirmed a photograph of its sales space at an schooling tradeshow, the place a spread of Kompanio-powered Chromebooks was exhibited with out a single energy cable mendacity round.
Colleges may like that function quite a bit since it’s definitely safer for teenagers to flow into freely in a classroom freed from wires and it might be simpler for the IT personnel to handle all of the computer systems.
Filed in Android, Chromebook, Editorspick, Google, MediaTek, Processors and SoC.
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