Popular processor comparisons: The MT6582 budget gaming chip

About processor comparisons

Generally this comparison between processors, both new and old, would focus on facts proven by benchmarks, real usage, technical specifications, or a combination of the three. This should help you guys determine which chipset is best for your needs.

So without further ado, let's get down to the gritty specifics of the Philippine's favorite budget gamer chipset, the MT6582.

The MediaTek MT6582

MediaTek MT6582 chipset line is the favorite budget performance chipset of many manufacturers these days, it's variants being launched sometime between Q3 2013 and Q1 2014. MT6582 chipsets feature Cortex-A7 revision 3 quad-core CPUs that run at 1.3GHz and an ARM Mali-400MP2 GPU, the clock rate of which varies between two variants: MT6582 and MT6582M.

The MT6582's Mali-400MP2 GPU runs at a decent 500MHz. This allows the GPU to support 720p displays and render graphically intensive games at relatively smooth framerates, albeit without OpenGL ES 3.0 support.

MT6582M's GPU, on the other hand, has a reduced clock rate of 416MHz. This limits the resolution support to qHD, although the performance difference is minimal due to the resolution difference.

Both variants support 13MP camera modules, and feature built-in single-carrier HSPA+/TD-SCDMA (as well as the standard GPRS, EDGE, and 3G), Wi-Fi, FM, Bluetooth, and GPS. Similar to MT6589, it supports 32-bit single-channel 533MHz RAM chips, with a maximum bandwidth of 4.3 GB/s.

Again, single-carrier HSPA+ has a maximum theoretical download speed of 21Mbps, but your mileage may vary.

The CPU

The Cortex-A7 CPU in the MT6582 is the third revision, which features slightly improved performance and lowered power consumption when compared to the second revision Cortex-A7. It has 32KB L1 cache and 512KB L2 cache, which is half the L2 cache of it's predecessor MT6589. This is perhaps why the bump in clock rate is necessary.

It is an ARMv7 32-bit architecture. It also features NEON, which can accelerate multimedia and signal processing algorithms such as video encode/decode, 2D/3D graphics, gaming, audio and speech processing, image processing, telephony, and sound synthesis.

When compared to a Cortex-A9 device, Cortex A7 features 1.7X power efficiency at 0.9X the performance.

The GPU

Mali-400MP - a famous GPU, first known from the Samsung Exynos line. First introduced circa 2008, Mali-400MP is a scalable platform intended for use on embedded devices. Proving to be a resilient line, it has scaled up to 2014 low to mid range performance standards via die-shrinks and was redesigned to allow for higher clock rates.

The Mali-400MP features the Utgard microarchitecture from ARM Holdings, and introduces a unified shader core, which gets rid of discrete vertex and pixel shaders and results to a more balanced and efficient graphics core. Instead, it features between one to four shader cores, all unified via a single ALU pipeline to the main vertex processor. 

However, there are drawbacks to this design. Since there is only one ALU pipeline, this might cause bottlenecks when the GPU configuration is poorly optimized. Also, due to having a single vertex processor, it has relatively poor triangle output, which can be an issue when rendering complex 3D scenery. As a result, increasing draw distance settings might cause lags on a device that has a Mali-400MP GPU.

The Mali-400MP2 in MT6582 is a redesigned 28nm variant, capable of clock rates of up to 500MHz while producing less heat, compared to the old 40nm variant which can only reach 266MHz. It has two shader cores, has it's own 256KB L2 cache, and features full support for OpenGL ES 2.0 standard graphics instructions. It can process 3.6GFLOPs per 200MHz clock rate, which requires it to have the boosted clock rate.

Overall value in 2014

The MT6582 line are good budget gaming chipsets that would likely last another year. They have great price VS performance ratios (especially since really cheap devices come with this chipset) and are a great buy for anyone on a tight budget. However, if you are looking for a mid-range device, you should look elsewhere.

Conclusion

Despite a few drawbacks, the MT6582 line has proven to be both a manufacturer and user favorite for budget devices, and has gained it's own dedicated following. It runs most graphics intensive games in playable frame rates, and is a good chipset for anyone looking for a good, well-rounded device, but on a tight budget. It currently competes with the Snapdragon 200.

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