Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917) vs Rockchip RK3288

Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (MSM8917)

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 (8917) is an ARM-based entry level SoC for tablets and smartphones (mostly Android based). It was announced in February 2016 and integrates four 64-Bit Cortex-A53 CPU cores (quad-core) that clock with up to 1.4 GHz. Furthermore, there is a Adreno 308 graphics card, a LPDDR3 memory controller (max. 667 MHz) and wireless radios for WiFi and 4G/LTE included in the chip.

The Cortex-A53 is the successor of the entry level Cortex-A7 CPU cores. The A53 is now capable of 64 Bit (ARMv8-ISA) and adressing more than 4 GB RAM. According to ARM the performance per MHz is a lot better and even surpasses a Cortex-A9 core.

The integrated Adreno 308 ist the integrated graphics card that supports OpenGL ES 3.0.

The integrated wireless radios support WiFi 802.11ac Wave 2, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS/GLONASS/Baidou, 2G, 3G and 4G (LTE Cat.4) standards. Futhermore, the SoC is able to decode 1080p videos in H.265 (encode only in H.264) and cameras with up to 13 MP.

The power consumption of the chip is ranging in the lower range, and therefore it is also suited for smaller smartphones. It is manufactured in 28 nm LP at TSMC.

Rockchip RK3288

The Rockchip RK3288 is a mid-range ARM SoC for Android and Chrome OS mobile systems. It integrates four Cortex-A12 cores clocked at up to 1.8 GHz. ARM calls these cores Cortex-A17 due to them having very similar performance levels. The SoC includes an ARM Mali-T760 MP4 (also called Mali-T764) GPU clocked at 600 MHz and a dual-channel DDR3, DDR3L, LPDDR2, LPDDR3 memory controller.

The ARM Cortex-A12 is the successor to the Cortex-A9 and is based on a 32 Bit ARMv7-A microarchitecture. A single A12 core should be roughly 40 % more powerful than an A9 core according to ARM.

The integrated video engine supports encoding of H.264, VP8, and MVC videos up to 1080p. Decoding is supported for videos up to 4K H.264 and 10 Bit H.265.

The chip is manufactured under a 28 nm HKMG process.