HiSilicon Kirin 970 vs HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G. Specifications, performance, tests

Background information about the processors being compared, series, generation and market segment.

• Segment
  Mobile Mobile
• Family
  HiSilicon Kirin HiSilicon Kirin
• Generation
  6 8
• CPU group
  HiSilicon Kirin 970 HiSilicon Kirin 990

Basic parameters such as number of cores, number of threads, base and turbo frequency, and cache size. These parameters indirectly tell about the speed of the processor, the higher they are the better.

• Frequency
  1.84 GHz 1.86 GHz
• CPU Cores
  8 8
• Turbo (1 Core)
  2.40 GHz 2.09 GHz
• CPU Threads
  8 8
• Turbo (8 Cores)
  2.40 GHz 2.86 GHz
• Hyperthreading
  No No
• Overclocking
  No No
• Core architecture
  hybrid (big.LITTLE) hybrid (Prime / big.LITTLE)
• A core
  4x Cortex-A73 2x Cortex-A76
• B core
  4x Cortex-A53 2x Cortex-A76
• C core
  -- 4x Cortex-A55

Internal Graphics does not affect the performance of the CPU, performs the work of the graphics card in its absence or on mobile devices.

• GPU name
  ARM Mali-G72 MP12 ARM Mali-G76 MP16
• GPU frequency
  0.75 GHz 0.60 GHz
• GPU (Turbo)
  No turbo No turbo
• Execution units
  12 16
• Shader
  192 256
• Max. GPU Memory
  2 GB 4 GB
• Max. displays
  1 2
• Generation
  Bifrost 2 Bifrost 3
• DirectX Version
  12 12
• Technology
  16 nm 7 nm
• Release date
  Q3/2017 Q3/2018

Built-in codecs used to encode and decode content. Significantly speeds up the required operations.

• h265 / HEVC (8 bit)
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• h265 / HEVC (10 bit)
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• h264
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• VP9
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• VP8
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• AV1
  No No
• AVC
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• VC-1
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode
• JPEG
  Decode / Encode Decode / Encode

Types, channel quantity of RAM supported by HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G and HiSilicon Kirin 970. Depending on the motherboards, higher or lower memory frequencies may be supported.

• Memory type
  LPDDR4X-2133 LPDDR4X-2133
• Max. Memory
  8 GB 8 GB
• ECC
  No No
• Memory channels
  4 4

• AES-NI
  No No

Compare the TDP requirements of TDP HiSilicon Kirin 970 and HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G to select a cooling system. Note, the TDP value refers to thermal watts, not electrical watts.

• TDP (PL1)
  9 W 6 W

Architecture, interfaces, additional instructions supported by HiSilicon Kirin 970 and HiSilicon Kirin 970, virtual machine technologies and process technology.

• Instruction set (ISA)
  ARMv8-A64 (64 bit) ARMv8-A64 (64 bit)
• Virtualization
  None None
• L3-Cache
  2.00 MB 2.00 MB
• Architecture
  Cortex-A73 / Cortex-A53 Cortex-A76 / Cortex-A55
• Technology
  10 nm 7 nm
• Socket
  N/A N/A
• Release date
  Q3/2017 Q3/2019