MediaTek unveils first 'true' eight-core mobile processor

MediaTek might not be making too many headlines with its processors for budget segment smartphones, however, the Taiwanese integrated circuit manufacturer seems to be raising the bar for the competition with its newly launched octa-core processors.

MediaTek has finally forayed into the processors war with its new processors that it claims is the world's first octa-core chip.

According to MediaTek, its latest eight-core chip for mobiles allows all the eight cores to run simultaneously unlike existing octa-core solutions in the market, which can only activate half of their CPU cores at once. The company might not be naming the existing octa-core processors but it is very evident that MediaTek is taking a pot-shot at Samsung's Exynos Octa 5 processors that the company introduced with its latest flagship model, Galaxy S4.

Some improvements with the introduction of the MediaTek's new octa-core processors include advanced web browsing that allows faster, more stable browsing experience through allocating individual browser tabs to CPU cores, smoother user interfaces by giving user-inputs to individual cores and rendering the 3D effects that result in enhanced functionality and appearance of user interfaces in both apps and operating system, improved gaming experiences via enhanced video frame-rate processing and low-latency gaming experience and the new octa-processor delivers efficient video playback feature that reduces the battery used for decoding with up to 20 percent more frames while on display mode.

However, the company has not announced the specifications and the exact launch date for the octa-core processors.

Recently, Samsung unveiled the new Exynos 5 Octa processor dubbed as the Exynos 5420. The latest iteration of the Exynos family is based on ARM Mali - T628 MP6 cores and boosts 3D graphics processing two times greater than the previous versions of Exynos 5 Octa processors. The Exynos 5420 processor is powered by four ARM Cortex-A15 processors at 1.8GHz with four additional Cortex-A7 cores at 1.3 GHz in a big.LITTLE configuration.