MediaTek’s new MT8196 Chromebook SOC gets benchmarked, and it’s fast

While we’re right on the cusp of finding out just how good MediaTek’s new Kompanio 838 (internally known as the MT8188) will be in the new Lenovo Chromebook Duet we expect at Google’s Chromebook Showcase next week, there are other MediaTek chips in development as well. One of these is the MT8196, and from the model name alone, we were already expecting quite a bit of speed from it.

You see, the most-powerful MediaTek chip in a Chromebook to date is the MT8195 that hit the market a few years ago as the Kompanio 1380. While it didn’t see broad adoption, the Kompanio 1380 in the Acer Chromebook Spin 513 was very capable and a chip that I wished was in some other hardware.

Assuming the single-digit bump in model number, we have to assume that the new MT8196 is a step up, right? That would normally make sense, and I’ve been hunting in the Chromium Repositories to find clues about what sort of core configuration this new SoC from MediaTek will arrive with – but I’ve come up empty so far.

Geekbench 6 to the rescue

However, after another unfruitful search this morning, I thought it a good time to see if anyone working on ‘Rauru’ (the development board for the MT8196) may have run it through Geekbench. I’ve looked in the past with no luck, but you just never know when an unreleased device will start showing up there. And to my surprise, there it was:

While I can’t completely deduce what the cores in this SoC are, we can at least know they are running at 2.10 GHz on a 7-core cluster and at 2.70 GHz on (presumably) a single large core. That’s not enough to know what specific cores we’re dealing with just yet, but I’m still hoping to find that info soon enough.

More importantly, look at those scores! For an ARM chip being designed for ChromeOS, this is far and away the most powerful we’ve seen to date. And it’s not just “powerful for an ARM chip.” This thing will be very potent, indeed. For reference, here’s a 12th-gen Core i3 for reference; specifically the ASUS Chromebook Plus CX34:

Those scores – both single and multi-core – are right in line with one another. And yes, I know a Core i3 hasn’t been known over the years as a powerhouse chip, but the 12th and 13th-gen chips from Intel have proven this mostly false. Sure, you get a bit of a step up with a Core i5, but it isn’t nearly as big of a jump as it used to be.

And, anecdotally, we’ve reviewed plenty of Chromebook Plus models with 12th-gen Core i3’s inside and I can promise you there are absolutely no performance issues to be had, there. In fact, from a cost, battery life, and efficiency standpoint, I think Core i3 (or Core 3 Ultra) SoCs from Intel are the perfect overall balance for Chromebooks at the end of the day.

That’s the sort of performance we’re seeing in this new MediaTek MT8196. And this is the first of likely many runs in Geekbench. If history is any guide, those numbers will go up by the time the first device based on this baseboard gets closer to arrival; and that’s a pretty fun thing to think about.

If MediaTek’s selection of ARM cores for this new MT8196 chip is bent towards efficiency, we could see 12th-gen Core i3 performance with 12+ hour battery life in slim, light devices that may or may not even need fans. All that is in the air for now, sure, but the big benefit of ARM SoCs is efficiency – and that allows for thinner, lighter devices for certain. We’re obviously still a bit out from any ‘Rauru’ devices arriving on shelves, but this is certainly shaping up to be a pretty big deal in the Chromebook space for sure!