You’ve probably heard of MediaTek before now. If you have, it’s probably qualified with “it’s not bad, for a MediaTek CPU”, or “this phone is quick, even for something with a MediaTek in it”. These statements aren’t entirely unwarranted however, as MediaTek can’t compete with the performance of the Exynos and Snapdragon CPUs making waves in high-end devices the world over. Instead, MediaTek make CPUs that are good enough to deliver a decent experience, while keeping the costs of the devices themselves fairly low. We saw this effect with the MT6589, the 1.2 Ghz Quad-Core CPU that is at the heart of many affordable devices that launched in the past year. The performance of the MT6589 isn’t terrible, either. Of course, it couldn’t compete with the Tegra 3 or the Snapdragon S4 Pro but, for low-power consuming Cortex A7 cores, the MT6589 performs well.
Which is why when MediaTek announced that they were about to launch a true octa-core CPU in the MT6592, we were all pretty impressed. What makes this a “true” octa-core CPU is the fact that all eight cores can run simultaneously in the MT6592. They might still be Cortex A7 cores but, they’re powerful enough for everyday tasks and they should be pretty kind on battery life, too. As well as this, heat concerns are kept to a minimum. This won’t matter to many of us but, for those looking for smartphones on a budget, this means that the next generation of mid-range devices could perform very well. After all, the 25,000 scores the CPU posts in AnTuTu is nothing to be sniffed at.
Now, MediaTek has been confirming to local media that their eight-legged CPU will be hitting the market November 20th. There are rumors of a 6-inch Sony device using such a device and that it could debut at Sony’s November 12th event. No matter what though, to see such a CPU launching so quickly after quad-core CPUs became the norm is a clear sign that there’s just no slowing down the mobile CPU market.