Top 10 best GPU in mobile and tablet devices 2017

Yesterday my brother was searching for budget android mobile and he has selected one mobile to buy. Actually, he doesn’t know much about the mobile like most of us. He just knows few things about mobile like Display size, internal storage, camera, ram, processor speed, android version, Design and looks etc. when I asked him which processor and GPU it has? he didn’t even know the model name of it. But he replied it looks good and ram is 4 GB so it can run HD games. Most of the people don't look inside the phone. They just look at display size, storage, camera pixels, ram and processor speed it’s understandable. But what about GPU? Most of the mobile users ignore this feature especially ladies and kids. They just see few important things and ignore GPU.

Let me tell you, GPU is the very important component of your android device. You can play all type of android game if you have selected the right mobile with right processor, ram, and GPU. I know most of us don’t have much knowledge about these small chips. Even if we know about computer hardware and graphic card. But don't worry I will try to show you top ten GPU available in the android mobiles market. So you can check my GPU power and rank before buying a new android smartphone with the right graphic unit.

Also Read: Best Android Emulators for PC

Top 10 Graphic Processing Unit for smartphones

The list can be changed anytime as new graphic card release for smartphone and tablet right now these are the top GPU which is available in the smartphones and tablet you can check their gaming performance by just searching the GPU name in Google or YouTube.

1. PowerVR GT7XT Series

PowerVr GT7XT is the fastest GPU series for smartphones. it is used by many Apple product like iPad Air 2, A9 SoC chipset which is placed inside Iphone 6s and 6s plus. It is part of a powerful GPU series 7XT which is based on unified shader architecture with 6 clusters that integrate 192 (FP16) / 384 ((FP32) ALU cores upcoming model has 16 clusters and 512-1024 ALU cores. Compare to any 6XT GPU it is much more efficient and improved performance. It is more energy efficient thanks to 3D transistors and improved 14/16 nm fabrication process.

Quick specification 

• 12 Cluster 
• 384 unified ALU
• PowerVR Rogue Architecture
• 14/16 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11.2
• Supports OpenGL® ES up to 3.x, AEP, OpenGL 3.3, DirectX 10, OpenCL™ 1.2 EP
• Used in Apple A9x

2. Nvidia Tegra X1

It is the second fastest GPU in the market right now for tablets and mobile with the architecture called Maxwell. It can be called improved version of Tegra k1 with more CUDA cores, two geometry units and 16 texture units, 16 ROPs, High memory bandwidth 25.6 GB/s and LPDDR4 memory. If you compare it with previous Tegra chipset you find a huge performance boost as you will see in the graph below.

Quick specification 

• 256 CUDA cores
• Core Speed 1000 Mhz 
• 32000 Mhz Memory speed
• 64 Bit Memory Bus Width
• Using shared Memory
• 20 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11.2
• Supports CUDA 6.0, AEP, OpenGL ES 3.1
• Used in Nvidia Tegra X1

3. Apple A10 Fusion / PowerVR

The apple A10 fusion is the latest chipset for mobiles and the graphic card of it is 40% faster than their previous chipset A9 while using less than 2/3 power compare to A9. The GPU is using PowerVR technology and the GPU is already used in latest released phone iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

The GPU is still new so don't have enough information we will update as soon as we get the update.

Quick specification 

• 6 core with LPDDR4 RAM 

4. Qualcomm Adreno 540

Currently it’s the best GPU they have integrated in QUALCOMM snapdragon 850 chipset for high end android devices. It is using same Andreno 530 technology and architecture but with higher frequency and better thermal stability. It can easily run any game which is thrown into the device. Most of the high end devices using it because of the chipset power efficiency and excellent performance thanks to 10nm processor technology.

Quick specifications:

• Core speed 710 MHz
• 14 nm technology
• OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, DirectX 12
• Used in Snapdragon 835

5. Mali-G71 MP20

It’s a high end GPU which is integrated with Ssamung Exynos 8895. It is upgraded version of Mali G71 MP8 which is using 8 cluster and this GPU is using 20 cluster and it is also using 10 nm technology which is much power efficient and better in performance. So right now it is the one of the powerful GPU for android phones.

Quick specifications:

• Core speed 900 MHz
• Using Bifrost architecture
• 8 Pipelines unified
• 10 nm technology
• Used in Samsung Exynos 8895

6. Mali-G71 MP8

It’s a high end GPU for mobile and notebooks. It is already used in few mobile and tablets with hisilicon kirin 960 in last quarter of 2016. It is much better than Andreno 530 and Qualcomm snapdragon 821 according to benchmarks and performance.

Quick specifications:

• Core speed 900 MHz
• Using Bifrost architecture
• 8 Pipelines unified
• 16 nm technology
• Used in HiSilicon Kirin 960

7. Qualcomm Adreno 530

Qualcomm Adreno 530 was the fastest GPU in mid-2015 for smartphones and tablets. It is used in the Snapdragon 820 SoC. It is using shared memory and running at the speed of 624 MHz. Compare to other Adreno series it is still the fastest GPU made by Adreno till date 27/4/2016.

Quick specification 

• Shaders clocked at up to 624 MHz
• Using shared memory
• 14 nm Technology
• It supports OpenGL ES 3.1 AEP, OpenCL 2.0, Direct3D 11.1 (FL 11_1)
• Used in Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 MSM8996

8. PowerVR GXA6850

It has been used in apple A8X chipset very effectively with very high energy efficiency in their apple iPad Air 2. It was the fastest mobile GPU in 2014 it can easily run all the HD games without any duduk perkara with deep coloring support for HD resolution. It runs at 450 MHz Core speed with 128 Bit memory bus width, OpenGL 3.x/4.x, OpenGL ES 3.0, it also supports DX10 and more FP16 GFLOPS which helps for less power rendering.

Quick specification

• 8 Clusters
• Core speed 450 Mhz 
• 128 Bit Memory Bus
• PowerVR Rogue Architecture
• 20 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 10
• Supports OpenGL up to 4.x, OpenGL ES 3.0
• Used in Apple A8X

9. NVIDIA Tegra K1 Kepler GPU

NVidia Tegra k1 Kempler GPU also known as Tegra 5 it was announced on 6/1/2015 at that time it was the fastest GPU. It has 192 CUDA cores at the clock of 950 MHz and using shader 5.0 with DirectX 11. GXA6850 and Tegra 5 both are a tough competitor of each other they both can come at the same position. It was designed for tablet and used in NVIDIA Shield Tablet which is known as a high-end gaming tablet.

Quick specification 

• 192 CUDA Cores
• 950 Clock rates
• Kepler Architecture
• 28 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11
• Supports Shader 5.0
• Used in Nvidia Tegra K1

10. Apple A9 / PowerVR GT7600

PowerVR GT7600 is a high-end GPu and also part of a powerful series of GPU GT7xT the GPU already used in iPhone 6s and 6s plus which is a high-performance smartphone of 2015. At its announcement, it was the fastest GPU but now it successor coming into play the performance and power efficiency of this model absolutely amazing.

Quick specification 

• 6 Cluster
• 192 ALU cores
• 14/16 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 10, 11.2
• Supports OpenGL ES up to 3.3, OpenCL 1.2 1.2 EP
• Used in Apple A9

Additional:-

11. ARM Mali-T880 MP12

The GPU ARM Mali T880 MP12 is a 4th gen GPU which is used in Samsung Exynos 8890 chipset and the chip integrated into Samsung galaxy s7 mobiles. Mali T8xxx series has 3 variants and MP12 version clocked up to 650 Mhz with 12 cores but it can be built up to 16 cores/clusters without losing any significant performance.

Quick specification 

• Midgard 4th Gen
• 12 Cores 
• Clock speed of 650 MHz
• 14 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11.2
• Supports OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.2
• Used in Samsung Exynos 8890 Octa

12. ARM Mali-T760 MP8

ARM Mali T760 MP8 is also used in Samsung chipset but little old one Samsung Exynos 7420 Octa which is used in Samsung galaxy s6. It’s also can be used 1 to 16 cores but using 8 cores at the speed of 772 MHz. Mali T7xx series has 6 variants and it is the faster one it’s a 3rd gen GPU for smartphones but still can run any HD android game.

Quick specification 

• Midgard 3rd Gen
• 8 Cores 
• Clock speed of 770-772 MHz
• 14 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11
• Supports OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.1, Renderscript, FSAA/MSAA
• Used in Samsung Exynos 7420 Octa

13. Qualcomm Adreno 430

Qualcomm Adreno 430 released in the beginning of 2015 it’s an integrated graphic card design only for android smartphones and tablets. The GPU used in snapdragon 810 SoC which is integrated into many high-performance android devices the technology they used to build this card known as FlexRender. The GPU uses 192 unified shaders at the speed of 650 MHz. it could be faster than this but heating issue forces the developers to reduce it clock rates.

Quick specification 

• 192 unified shaders 
• Clock speed of 650 MHz
• Shared Memory 
• 20 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11
• Supports OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.2
• Used in Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 MSM8994

14. ARM Mali-T880 MP4

Another Mail T880 series GPU came under top 10 GPU list the MP4 variant of Mali T880 has 4 cores/clusters which is running at the speed of 900 MHz it is used in Huawei/HiSilicon Kirin 950 the chip will be available in 2016 it’s a 4th gen GPU and performance much better than few other 8 core GPU thanks to its power and 16nm technology process in the kirin 950. It might be used in Huawei mate 8.

Quick specification 

• Midgard 4th gen Architecture
• 4 cores at the speed of 900 MHz
• 16 nm Technology
• Supports DirectX 11.2
• Supports OpenGL ES 3.1, OpenCL 1.2
• Used in HiSilicon Kirin 955 and HiSilicon Kirin 950

Hope these 10 Mobile GPU ranking will clear your mind and you will understand which GPU is good for your phone budget. If you think my ranking is wrong you can comment below so I would reconsider on it.

Whenever you see MP at the end of any mobile GPU model number that’s mean is single core and when it’s MP2 that’s mean it's dual core and MP3 means its tri-core and MP4 means quad core.