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HiSilicon Kirin 970

Manufacturing Process
10nm
CPU Cores
8 cores
Instruction Set
ARMv8-A
Memory Type
LPDDR4X (1866MHz)
GPU
Mali-G72 MP12

ℹ️ Basic Information

SOC Name HiSilicon Kirin 970
Brand hisilicon
Announcement Date 01 September 2017
Class Flagship
Manufacturing Process 10nm
Manufacturing TSMC

⚡ CPU Specifications

CPU Architecture 4x 2.36 GHz – Cortex-A73
4x 1.84 GHz – Cortex-A53
CPU Cores 8 Core
CPU Frequency 2360MHz
Instruction Set ARMv8-A

🧠 Cache & NPU

Cache 2 MB
Cache Level L2
SLC ---
NPU Yes

💾 Memory

Memory Type LPDDR4X
Memory Frequency 1866MHz
Memory Bus 4x 16 Bit
Max Bandwidth 29.8 Gb/s
Max Memory Size 8 GB

🎮 GPU

GPU Mali-G72 MP12
GPU Architecture Bifrost 2nd gen
Pipelines 12 Pipeline
Shading Units 144 Unit
Total Shaders 144 Unit
Vulkan Version Version 1.0
OpenCL Version Version 2.0
DirectX Version Version 12

💿 Storage & Display

Storage Type UFS 2.1
Max Display Resolution 3120 x 1440
Max Camera Resolution 48MP + 2x 20MP

🎵 Video & Audio

Video Capture 4K at 30FPS
Video Playback 4K at 30FPS
Video Codecs H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9
Audio Codecs AAC, AIFF, MP3, MP4, WAV

📶 Connectivity

WiFi Wifi 5
Bluetooth Bluetooth 4.2

🛰️ Navigation Systems

GPS Yes
GLONASS Yes
Beidou Yes
Galileo Yes
QZSS No
NAVIC No

📊 Benchmark Scores

AnTuTu 10 372,441

⚖️ Related SOC

Displayed SoCs are selected based on performance class suitability and key benchmark metrics.
MediaTek
MediaTek Helio G96
MediaTek • 8 cores • 2021
380,330
Qualcomm
Qualcomm Snapdragon 4s Gen 2
Qualcomm • 8 cores • 2024
376,951
hisilicon
HiSilicon Kirin 970
hisilicon • 8 cores • 2017
372,441
Samsung
Samsung Exynos 8895
Samsung • 8 cores • 2017
372,105
MediaTek
MediaTek Helio G90T
MediaTek • 8 cores • 2019
368,990

✅ Positive Aspects

1. Balanced Flagship Performance

Kirin 970 features eight cores with powerful Cortex-A73 and efficient Cortex-A53 clusters, providing strong performance for everyday usage and multitasking.

2. Dedicated NPU for AI Tasks

This SoC includes a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) which accelerates AI workloads like photography scene recognition and voice commands beyond what CPU/GPU alone can achieve.

3. Advanced GPU & Multimedia

With a 12-core Mali-G72 GPU and support for modern video codecs, Kirin 970 delivers capable graphics and media playback experience for its class.

❌ Negative Aspects

1. No 5G Connectivity

Kirin 970 uses a Cat.18 LTE modem and does not have built-in 5G connectivity, limiting network speeds to 4G LTE.

2. Older 10nm Node

Manufactured using a 10nm process, it is less power-efficient and slower compared to later flagships built on 7nm or smaller nodes.

Device information for this processor will be available soon. We are working on collecting data about smartphones and tablets that use the HiSilicon Kirin 970.