Mtk6577? (Update: It's here!)

[lopri]

*Update: It's arrived. (3/23/2013) I took pictures and they're in post #32. (Warning: 10 pictures)*

I bought this for $99 last night. (impulse)

http://android-sale.com/goophone-i5s.html

I couldn't resist the chance to pull pranks on my friends. While I was at it, I clicked on a couple more links and watched in awe the prolific copy-cat markets in a certain country overseas. Like here:

http://www.fastcardtech.com/

One thing that caught my eyes were the chips that these budget/fake phones are using: MTK6573, MTK6577, MTK6589,... well, what are they?

 

[lopri]

I am guessing they're Cortex A8/A9 variants? Is this company (Mediatek?) a design house or a fab house?

 

[ViRGE]

Mediatek is fabless. They use TSMC, I believe.

As for their chips, what they are is ungodly slow and cheap. The fastest GPU is an SGX544MP1.

MT6573: ARM11 (ARMv6) CPU at 650 MHz / GPU: PowerVR SGX 531 / 3G,HSPA compatible
MT6577: Cortex-A9 (ARMv7) CPU at 1.0 GHz dual-core / GPU: PowerVR SGX 531 / 3G,HSPA compatible
MT6589 (previously known as MTK6588): Cortex A7 (ARMv7) CPU at 1.2 GHz quad-core / GPU: PowerVR SGX 544 at 300 MHz / 3G, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA compatible

 

[lopri]

Do you happen to know what i bought myself into? The product in the first link (Goophone i5S). According to the site:

• 4 inch oneglass screen, 854*480 pixel display
• 1GHz MTK MT6577 dual-core processor
• Support 3G network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 & WCDMA 850/2100 MHz
• 5MP back camera + 1.3MP front camera
• Android 4.1.2 OS

I was looking for a platform to mess around with Android without worrying about my data, so one thing I did look for was Jelly Bean. This phone will simply be abused to no end. Is the MTK MT6577 adequate for Jelly Bean? What exactly is it? A dual core A8? Dual-core A9?

 

[lopri]

Thank you, ViRGE. I guess I am going to get what I paid for. But I am still excited for a $99 iPhone 5S!

Edit: Wait, looking at the numbers my intuitive thought is that higher model number = faster/advanced chip. But they are using A7s on 6589 but A9s on 6577? I thought A9 is quite a bit faster than A7?

Edit 2: Oh, It seems like the GPU is quite beefier on 6588 than on 6577. (even w/ 544MP1) Very interesting chips and their prices are ungodly low!

 

[StrangerGuy]

Mediatek is fabless. They use TSMC, I believe.

As for their chips, what they are is ungodly slow and cheap. The fastest GPU is an SGX544MP1.

MT6573: ARM11 (ARMv6) CPU at 650 MHz / GPU: PowerVR SGX 531 / 3G,HSPA compatible
MT6577: Cortex-A9 (ARMv7) CPU at 1.0 GHz dual-core / GPU: PowerVR SGX 531 / 3G,HSPA compatible
MT6589 (previously known as MTK6588): Cortex A7 (ARMv7) CPU at 1.2 GHz quad-core / GPU: PowerVR SGX 544 at 300 MHz / 3G, HSPA+, TD-SCDMA compatible

C'mon MT6589 is like ~80% as fast as a GS3, that is not slow by any stretch of the imagination. Slow are things like my old LG P970 that doesn't even break 3K in Antutu and even that surfs the web just fine enough.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Does it run a fake iOS too? I wonder if this is what they have in China. I saw them try to sell me one and it had a nice fake iOS running.

 

[luv2liv]

give us a review when you get the item! hehe
im curious if ATT can detect the phone and force you into data plan once you slip the sim in. thanks!

 

[lopri]

No, it runs Android. There are already iOS and Windows Phone skins for Android that you can download/apply to your Android phones (I haven't personally tried yet), but these Chinese offerings take one step further by creating near-identical physical appearances. Just look at the site and the product names. "HDC," "Note+ 2," "iPhone 5S," etc,. Its really funny.

I know performance isn't going to be there with these chips but I am very curious about the build quality of these copycat phones.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Well I know it runs Android, but I'm wondering if it comes as a fake-iOS skin or whatever. The videos I see of goophone seem to show an iOS skin applied already. I just wanna take this to China and show them that I already have an "iPhone" when they try to sell me a fake one later this month... although the last time I just pulled out my real iPhone and said I already have one, thanks.

 

[swanysto]

Sounds like it is running a version MIUI.

 

[lopri]

give us a review when you get the item! hehe
im curious if ATT can detect the phone and force you into data plan once you slip the sim in. thanks!

Oh man.. I don't even know/remember how/for what AT&T used to charge me. I moved away from them to T-Mobile. I will borrow a working AT&T SIM and see what happens.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Sounds fun. I can't wait for a review.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

100 bucks for that phone is a great price. You lucky sob!

 

[ViRGE]

C'mon MT6589 is like ~80% as fast as a GS3, that is not slow by any stretch of the imagination. Slow are things like my old LG P970 that doesn't even break 3K in Antutu and even that surfs the web just fine enough.

The S3 would run circles around the MT6589. A7 is comparable to A8 in performance, which is quite a bit below A9 and Krait (depending on which S3 we're talking about). It's maybe 25% the speed of S3 in CPU-bound tasks, assuming the software stack isn't rubbish. And in GPU-bound scenarios those stats would put it at around 40% the performance of the S3 at best. Assuming of course it doesn't have a 32bit memory bus (which as small as the chip is, is likely).

It is what it is: a barebones SoC for budget phones. It does what it's designed to do, but it's clearly low performance to keep the die size to a minimum.

 

[Rakehellion]

The S3 would run circles around the MT6589. A7 is comparable to A8 in performance, which is quite a bit below A9 and Krait (depending on which S3 we're talking about). It's maybe 25% the speed of S3 in CPU-bound tasks, assuming the software stack isn't rubbish. And in GPU-bound scenarios those stats would put it at around 40% the performance of the S3 at best. Assuming of course it doesn't have a 32bit memory bus (which as small as the chip is, is likely).

It is what it is: a barebones SoC for budget phones. It does what it's designed to do, but it's clearly low performance to keep the die size to a minimum.

So is it worth it to get the quad core version, or is it just a throwaway phone in every way?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

so thats interesting the 6589 is slower than the 6577? A7 vs A9? But the GPU of the 6589 is faster!

 

[Ravynmagi]

so thats interesting the 6589 is slower than the 6577? A7 vs A9? But the GPU of the 6589 is faster!

The 6577 is a dual core A9. The 6589 is a quad core A7.

Apparently from some benchmarks I've seen the quad core A7 is faster than a dual A9, but slower than a quad A9.

 

[podspi]

The 6577 is a dual core A9. The 6589 is a quad core A7.

Apparently from some benchmarks I've seen the quad core A7 is faster than a dual A9, but slower than a quad A9.

I would guess in actual use the dual-A9 is faster.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I would guess in actual use the dual-A9 is faster.

Perhaps. Sometimes those benchmarks don't paint the whole picture. Seems weird someone made a quad core A7 to me.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Seems weird someone made a quad core A7 to me.

Wasn't the A7 supposed to be the ARM future for smartphones, while A15 was for "servers?"

A quad A7 on paper seems more normal than a desktop CPU in a smartphone.

 

[bearxor]

Perhaps. Sometimes those benchmarks don't paint the whole picture. Seems weird someone made a quad core A7 to me.

Samsung did.

They paired it with a quad A15 though.

 

[lopri]

So where does PowerVR SGX 531, which is part of the MTK3577 SoC, stand? I know PowerVRs in iDevices are 54xs. (543, 544, 544M2, etc,.) How much slower is 531 and what other SoCs use or used it?

 

[ViRGE]

SGX531 is a neutered version of SGX535, the GPU first used in the iPhone 3GS(2009). At equivalent clockspeeds it has the same amount of shading performance, but only half of the texturing performance.

If you want a really vague idea, look at the following AnandTech benchmark. The iPhone 4 uses the SGX535 just like the 3GS does (though at a higher clockspeed). I do not know the clockspeed of the MT3577's GPU.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Smartphone11/368

Edit: Actually, the Droid 2 in that chart is using an SGX530, which is comparable to the SGX531. So look at that instead. But I don't know how the clockspeeds compare

 

[lopri]

Hmm.. so it's potentially faster than iPhone 4's GPU, pending clock speed? I suppose that is not that bad for my planned use of this phone. Thank you much for the information, ViRGE.