Mediatek MT8121 vs Intel Core i5-1145G7

Mediatek MT8121

The Mediatek MT8121 is a low-cost ARM SoC (System on a Chip) mainly used in tablets. It is manufactured in 28 nm and integrates a quad-core Cortex-A7 processor and a PowerVR SGX 544 GPU. The CPU cores are typically clocked at 1.3 GHz while the GPU is clocked at 156 MHz.

Performance

Since the Cortex-A7 architecture is somewhat slower than a Krait or Cortex-A9 design at the same clock speeds, the performance of the MT8121 is just below Nvidia's Tegra 3 or the Samsung Exynos 4412. The PowerVR SGX 544 is also just a low-cost solution not designed for ultra-high resolution displays or very demanding games.

Features

In addition to the processor and GPU, the SoC integrates a decoder for 1080p video, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 as well as GPS, but lacks a 2G/3G/4G radio. Cameras are supported up to a resolution of 13 MP.

Power consumption

Thanks to the energy-efficient A7 cores and 28 nm manufacturing, the power consumption is likely very low and suitable for even smaller tablets.

Intel Core i5-1145G7

The Intel Core i5-1145G7 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for laptops and Ultrabooks based on the Tiger Lake-U generation that was announced early 2021. It integrates four Willow Cove processor cores (8 threads thanks to HyperThreading). The base clock speed depends on the TDP settings and ranges from 1.1 GHz (12 Watt TDP) up to 2.6 GHz (28 Watt). The Boost is always specified at 4.4 GHz (one or two cores).

Another novelty is the integrated Xe graphics card with 80 EUs based on the completely new Gen 12 architecture. It offers a significantly higher performance compared to the older Iris Plus G7 (Ice Lake).

Furthermore, Tiger Lake SoCs add PCIe 4 support (4 lanes), AI hardware acceleration, and the partial integration of Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 and Wifi 6 in the chip. In addition to this, the i5 supports vPro for easy remote management.

The chip is produced on the improved 10nm SuperFin process at Intel that should be comparable to the 7nm process at TSMC (e.g. Ryzen 4000 series).

All articles on Tiger Lake can be found on our Tiger Lake architecture hub.