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Following on from my previous post, comparing the MediaTek Helio G88 vs Helio G85 & G80, we have the new Helio G96.

The MediaTek Helio G88 is a largely forgettable chipset, prolonging the life of the existing G85/G80, but the Helio G96 offers some decent upgrades from its own predecessors.

Key Features of MediaTek Helio G96 include:

  • Incredible 120Hz FullHD+ displays
  • Supersized 108MP main cameras
  • Fast 4G LTE with Dual 4G SIM
  • MediaTek HyperEngine 2.0 Lite game technology
  • High-end 4G smartphone performance

What’s the same?

Quite a lot. The fabrication process and CPU specification, memory and Wi-Fi specification are all identical.

What’s changed?

The Helio G95 and Helio G90T were effectively the same chipsets, but the Helio G95 bumped up the GPU frequency by 100Mhz to 900 MHz. It is worth remembering that the Helio G90T was launched two years, so it is quite old now, but it was the first chipset that I can remember putting decent pressure on Qualcomm for its performance.

The Mediatek Helio G96 swaps out the older four-core Mali-G76 with a newer dual-core Mali G57. How much difference this offers in performance remains unknown.

The Mali-G76 was launched 3 years ago, so it is a little long in the tooth.

The ARM Mali-G57 was first seen on chipsets like the Kirin 820, which was used on the Huawei P40 Lite. The GPU on the Kirin 820 used 50% more cores/clusters than the Helio G96, but it offered incredible performance with significantly higher GPU scores in Antutu than devices equipped with the Snapdragon 765G.

There have been a few other minor hardware upgrades too. You now get Bluetooth 5.2 vs 5.0. Storage is UFS 2.2 vs UFS 2.1, which gives you a new Write Booster (write accelerator) function. This feature improves the writing speed of the UFS 2.2 over that of its predecessor. 

The LTE modem is upgraded from Cat 12 to Cat 13.

Then the camera support has been bumped up to 108 MP for a single camera, and the display resolution can now support 120 Hz @ 1080p+.

Mediatek Helio G96 vs Helio G95 & Helio G90T Specifications

MediatekHelio G96Helio G95Helio G90T
Fabrication Process 12nm FinFET12nm FinFET12nm FinFET
Big cores2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.05 GHz2x Cortex-A76 @ 2.05 GHz2x Cortex A76 @ 2.05GHz
Small cores6x Cortex-A55 @ 2.0 Ghz6x Cortex-A55 @ 2.0 Ghz 6x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz
GPUMali G57 MC2Mali-G76 MC4 @ 900MhzMali G76 MP4 @ 800MHz
Display120 Hz @ 1080p+90 Hz @ 1080p+90 Hz @ 1080p+
RAMLPDDR4X @ 2133 MHzLPDDR4X @ 2133 MHzLPDDR4X @ 2133 MHz
StorageUFS 2.2UFS 2.1UFS 2.1
Max camera resolution108 MP64 MP64MP
Video capture4K @ 30 fps4K @ 30 fps4K 30fps
LTE modem (downlink)Cat 13Cat 12Cat 12
Wi-FiWi-Fi 5 (a/b/g/n/ac)Wi-Fi 5 (a/b/g/n/ac)Wi-Fi 5 (a/b/g/n/ac)
BluetoothBluetooth 5.2Bluetooth 5.0Bluetooth 5.0

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