Companio Ultra: MediaTek unveils a high-end chip for Chromebooks
Companio Ultra: MediaTek unveils a high-end chip for Chromebooks
Image: MediaTek
MediaTek also sees Chromebooks needing high-end chips, which the company is now addressing with the new Companio Ultra. This chip shares many similarities with the current flagship Dimensity 9400 smartphone. MediaTek wants to put the X86 competition, and especially Intel, at the forefront.
According to MediaTek, the Ultra would be the new benchmark for Chromebook performance and efficiency. The company is relying on the same high-end hardware, which can also be found in the Dimensity 9400 for Android smartphones. This time, they don’t want to leave anything on the table, it was said in the context of a preliminary discussion with MediaTek, after the company’s 1000 series chips, which previously served the high-end segment, failed to deliver the success MediaTek had hoped for. Chips such as the Companio 1200, 1300T, and 1380 form the top of the line in MediaTek’s portfolio for Chromebooks, whose equipment was limited only to ARM CPU and GPU cores and rather old GPUs.
Current ARM CPU and GPU
The new Companio Ultra, the first chip in its class to feature only the 910 model, is expected to do everything differently by using the same building blocks as the flagship Dimensity 9400 smartphone. This means the Chromebook processor is also manufactured at TSMC N3E and offers a CPU consisting of 1 × ARM Cortex-X925, 3 × Cortex-X4, and 4 × Cortex-720. The Immortalis-G925 MC11 graphics unit provides one core less than in the Dimensity 9400, but supports all other features such as hardware ray tracing, which Google does not yet support in ChromeOS. Mediatek Companio Ultra at a Glance
MediaTek installs NPU with 50-core processor
MediaTek is thus neglecting the objective of what you actually need in a Chromebook or Google’s requirements for “Chromebook Plus,” the manufacturer explains. However, the company wants to ensure future requirements and, above all, the demand for AI features. For local processing, for example on the Google Gemini, a 50-core processor is used with the MediaTek NPU 890, which clearly stands out from competitors in the Chromebook segment.
Intel in sight
As a competitor, MediaTek has picked up the Core Ultra 125U (Meteor Lake) to showcase the Ultra processor, which Intel introduced to the market about a year and a half ago. The Companio Ultra offers 18% more single-core performance (2,600 points in Geekbench 6.2) with 50% less power consumption (7 watts). For the benchmark multi-core test, MediaTek gives 40% more power (8,000 points) with the same power consumption (15 watts) or 30% less power consumption with the same performance.
The integrated MediaTek GPU demonstrated a 40% higher performance in GFXBench Manhattan 3.0 compared to Intel’s Core Ultra 125U graphics. In Minecraft, the FPS lead is expected to be as high as 250%. While MediaTek’s NPU achieves 50 peaks for INT8, Intel’s Meteor Lake only achieves 10 peaks. Current Moon Lake chips are significantly better positioned in this segment with up to 48 peaks.
CPU performance compared to the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U
The higher efficiency of the ARM chip should have a positive effect on the terms. MediaTek predicts 20 hours of runtime with a 60-day battery in Google’s Power Load Test (PLT) for ChromeOS, comparing it to an ASUS Expert Cx54 (CX5403CMA) with an Intel Core Ultra 5 115U, which only achieves 15.5 hours.
Two external displays supported
Developed as a processor for Chromebooks, the Ultra offers expanded display support via the integrated Display Port (EDP) compared to the Dimensity 9400, allowing two external displays up to 4k60 to be connected in addition to the Chromebook’s internal display. In the video area, the chip offers an encoder for HEVC and AVC as well as a decoder for HEVC, AVC, VP9, and AV1. Wi-Fi is supported up to Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth up to version 6.0. New Chromebooks in the Coming Months
MediaTek expects the first Chromebooks with Companio Ultra to hit the market in the coming months. Customers have not yet been named.
Techastuce received information about this item from MediaTek under NDA. The only requirement was the earliest possible publication date.
Topics: Arm Chromebook ChromeOS Google MediaTek Notebooks Process: MediaTek
Marc deciphers processors by testing their performance for gaming, content creation, and artificial intelligence.
