Mobile chipset manufacturer MediaTek has been making some serious waves in the industry as of late. Last month, the company announced the first true octa-core ARM processor, the MT6592, packing eight 28-nanometer ARM Cortex-A7 cores. And with the recent introduction of the Cortex-A17 from ARM, they're set to start sampling a new octa-core processor that will compete in the premium LTE smartphone market.
The Cortex-A17 is a mid-range offering that will further bolster mainstream smartphones and will likely even find a home in Smart TVs and over-the-top devices. The chip features ARM's big.LITTLE architecture which is said to help better manage workloads by only using the necessary amount of cores for the task at hand.
MediaTek's new MT6595 will employ four A17 cores clocked between 2.2GHz and 2.5GHz as well as four 1.7GHz A7s. On the graphics side, users will have access to a Rogue PowerVR Series6 GPU.
Despite the fact that ARM is marketing the A17 as a mid-range product, MediaTek is classifying their new chip as a premium offering that will do battle with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 and 805 chips. The company claims the chipset will not only be faster than Samsung's popular Exynos octa-core offerings, but also more power efficient.
MediaTek also points out that the chip will be the first octa-core LTE chipset with an H.265 Ultra HD Codec built in.
It all certainly sounds good on paper but we'll reserve final judgment until after we get to test it firsthand. MediaTek plans to sample the chips during the first half of this year and you'll be able to buy an equipped smartphone starting in the second half of 2014.