http://www.phonearena.com/news/MediaTek-Helio-X20-vs-Snapdragon-810-leaked-he..."Helio X20 vs Snapdragon 810 heat test: alleged test conditions
The leaked slides claim that MediaTek's test involved a couple of dummy devices, one powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, and the other powered by the MediaTek Helio X20. These dummy devices allegedly ran Android 4.4 KitKat, and lacked cellular connectivity.
The test is said to have consisted of three separate stages:
Stage 1: 10 minutes of casual Wi-Fi browsing
Stage 2: 10 minutes of Asphalt 8 (using the top quality graphics available)
Stage 3: 10 minutes of Modern Combat 5
Helio X20 vs Snapdragon 810 heat test: alleged results
The Snapdragon 810 and the Helio X20 started at about the same temperature, somewhere between 20 and 25 degrees Celsius. At the 10 minute mark, both chips heated up to almost 30 degrees Celsius, although the Snapdragon 810 appeared to be a bit cooler.
When browsing the web, the Snapdragon 810 is believed to have used its four ARM Cortex-A53 clocked 1.5GHz. According to the leaked slides, the Helio X20 relied on its four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz, while also switching to its four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2GHz when more processing power was required by heavier sites.
At the end of the second stage, the Snapdragon 810 had allegedly heated all the way to about 38 degrees Celsius, while the Helio X20 was a bit cooler at 33 degrees Celsius. During the third stage, the Snapdragon 810 allegedly reached a maximum temperature of almost 45 degrees, while the Helio X20 only heated up to about 33 degrees.
The Snapdragon 810 appears to have switched to its four ARM Cortex-A57 cores clocked at 2GHz, while the MediaTek Helio X20 continued to use its four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 2GHz.
The third stage (Modern Combat 5) is where the two ARM Cortex-A72 cores integrated into the Helio X20 allegedly come into play. When MediaTek's chip detects a temperature that's above 33 degrees Celsius, it is said to switch to the two cores that use the new architecture. Since the Cortex-A72 cores pack more processing power than both the Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 cores, they should dissipate less heat at the same load. This could be the reason why we see the Snapdragon 810 reaching a maximum temperature of almost 45 degrees, while the Helio X20 only heated up to about 33 degrees." 113oF vs 92oF ---- that 113oF is perceived as HOT to hold on to --- note that real tissue damage starts to occur at temperatures of 50 degrees Centigrade or 122oFThere are lies and there are dammed lies and then there is preliminary test data being VERY CAREFULLY leaked from a single vendor in support of a new product release.
Which one this really is -- is up for grabs at the moment, but it does show that Helio 20 TESTING is going on and that Qualcomm 810s really do get hotter than they should (and that they really do throttle more than they should).
Hope is being shown here that the 11 cores inside the Helio 20 really do crank out the performance at lower battery consumption levels and at a flatter max temperature rise plateau --- without the big performance dip that shows that survival level processor throttling is going on, something that is clearly seen on the Qualcomm 810 chipset highest performance level data.
Some Oriental phone makers are actually LEAVING the Qualcomm 810 platform at mid-season because of these processor heating and performance throttling issues.
Actual end users are now testing their individual 810 based phone products using Antutu X and if they don't perform up to advertised spec due to thermalling, back they go under the 1 year factory warranty. This is hurting the phone makers, and they
really don't like that at all.
This is VERY bad news for Qualcomm, since these same vendors are now choosing short term to go back to use some of the older Mediatek 8 core chipsets to compete against the Galaxy S6 instead of the Qualcomm 810 or the Qualcomm 808, both for the much lower chip cost and for the much better performance on the post-throttling slowness issues.
They feel the older, cooler running Mediatek chipsets actually gives the same or better actual performance as a post-throttled 810 or the downspec'd 808 from Qualcomm can give at full temperature (at a much much lower chipset price tag to the builder too).
Qualcomm's lock on 4G LTE has been broken this year by the Mediatek World 4G LTE radio/baseband that is now inside the new/old Helio 10 chipset and this new/old Mediatek chip is being seen as "very attractive" price and performance-wise to the oriental phone builders right now. It's not like they don't already have some board and phone designs that it will drop right into that can go back instantly into full production .....
These are the same guys are also lined up to buy the new Helio 20 first production runs ...... and they are all sampling the Helio 20 chipsets in pre-production phones right now as we speak.
So now Mediatek really needs to be very careful to only advertise what the new "real first production run" unsorted Helio 20 chipsets CAN REALLY REALLY REALLY DO UNDER THE MOST ADVERSE CONDITIONS PERFORMANCE/HEAT/BATTERY/GRAPHICS/THERMAL THROTTLING-WISE. In other words,
come out of the gate with the conservative 808 type specs instead of the doing the fluffed up 810 type specs and getting eaten alive by all them eagle eyed tester people .....
Complete conservative honesty and no fluff will get Mediatek a huge huge market share gain this year as Qualcomm has given them this HUGE opportunity window for free by exaggerating Qualcomm's way into a real marketing/in-warranty nightmare with that 810 chipset.
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If Qualcomm isn't careful, they can go from #1 position to #3 position in a single calendar year .....TSMC will likely support Mediatek in this effort as they don't like being blamed for making a batch of bad chipsets (and Qualcomm certainly painted them with that paintbrush early on).
TSMC will be very very careful with the Helio 20 production runs, and will be totally honest in their sampling of the Helio 20 as that is in their best interest right now too.
Plus TSMC has got another
real good reason for total total honesty about Helio 20 right now too.
ARM is going to be there, as ARM has a vested interest in the very first runs of their newest design .... and ARM doesn't play any sort of monkey games with exaggerated claims at all.
(they leave that particular quicksand trap for Intel, Samsung and Qualcomm to fall into).
Remember, ARM has already run these things in a
full production run format at the vendor in question (TSMC)
before even releasing the hard macro design to Mediatek for them to work on it. The current samples of the Helio 20 chipsets were likely built for ARM, not Mediatek.
ARM guarantees their hard macro designs work as promised -- and we do note that NO FORMAL PROMISES have ever been publicly made by ARM on this new design at this point in time other than some very very vague "30% better than A57" type stuff that was said about six months ago.
If there are issues out there in the first TSMC runs, the lots in question will be held by ARM until the problems are worked out -- that is how ARM works. ARM deals in total reality,
the design and production process performance and production process yield level is GUARANTEED by ARM with
no fluff and
no excuses.
ARM will set all expectations to be in line with the real production level reality at a good production yield level.
Mediatek is dancing around ARM's feet like an excited puppy right now because until ARM says it, you can't even talk about it (that's in the ARM contract). Mediatek also has their brand new world 4G modem and baseband all tied up in this Helio 10 and Helio 20 effort, so their high excitement level is understandable.
When this hits, they can sell their chipset equipped phones anywhere in the world, freely. This means Chinese phones selling in America through Amazon to be cheap BYOP phones for Sprint and T-Mobile.
Also remember that LENARO and Google both have to software support this new Helio 20 chipset and 4G LTE radio/baseband
all the way through the Linux kernel before it can be talked about or formally released. Android M is coming out this fall, and it may contain all of what is needed, or else the Helio 20 could be released in a simple weekly dot rev of both the Linux Kernel and of Android 5.1 Lollipop if there are no drastic new Android features that need to be supported ......
You know, really drastic, radical new Android stuff like Android phone/PC docking tech, etc. etc. etc.
Yep, I betcha
it is already incorporated in the ARM hard macro design already, just as it is already in the Android M software release for this fall ....
.... you know, it isn't every day you get to go one up on Qualcomm, so some tail wagging puppy excitement on Mediatek's part is warranted, I think .... 
..... question becomes when is Samsung going to announce theirs at 14nm -- like one day after ARM uncorks it ????
Qualcomm has already announced that Samsung is building their next top of the line chipset for them -- which one that is going to be still isn't clear.
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