Taiwan-based chipmaker MediaTek has a new chip that is obviously built for Google’s AI-centric Googlebooks. However, you won’t find it inside any of the five models we know are set to launch over the next few weeks. Judging by MediaTek’s past laptop-level processors, it may be our best hope to find a Googlebook that doesn’t cost more than $1,000.
Of the Googlebooks coming this year, only one, the Acer Googlebook 14, is set to launch for Google’s stated beginning price of $900. Unfortunately, Acer says this price is only a limited-time offer, so don’t expect that promise to last for long. With RAM prices going in an ever-skyward direction, we bet this trend will keep getting worse for Google’s new laptop format. What’s different about MediaTek’s chip is that we’ve already seen much of the same microarchitecture before in far-cheaper Chromebooks.
While Intel and Qualcomm plow ahead with their Googlebooks, MediaTek has been waiting in the wings with its Dimensity CX C10 Max chip. It’s a new design that follows up from its previous Kompanio Ultra 910 found inside high-end Chromebook Plus models like the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14. This time, the 3nm ARM-based chip is built around the same “all-big core” octa-core design with a similar singular ARM Cortex-X925, three Cortex-X4, and four Cortex-A720 cores. It otherwise runs with a 12MB L3 cache and supports LPDDR5X memory up to 9600Mbps speeds.
The Taiwanese chipmaker claims its new processor can beat a 2-year-old Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 by around 15% in multi-core performance with the Geekbench 6 benchmark. Two out of three Googlebooks coming at the laptop series’ launch will sport that same Qualcomm chip. The chipmaker is sticking its CX C10 chip with a MediaTek NPU 890. That’s a neural processor promising 55 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of AI performance, which is necessary to handle some of the background AI tasks happening inside GooglebookOS.
The same 11-core Immortalis G925 MC11 GPU as the Kompanio Ultra rounds off what sounds like a performant, though low-key, chip for Googlebooks. What does that mean for price? That Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 originally shipped for $650 last year, but likely due to the spiking cost of RAM, Lenovo inflated the price multiple times, and now it sits at $1,000. It’s not a good sign for any upcoming Googlebook, but the final price will be determined by how many high-end specs the company packs in.
MediaTek promises it’s working with its old friend Lenovo on a new Googlebook, though it didn’t say when or where we’ll see it first. We’re stuck waiting and hoping this chip can help us find a Googlebook for under $1,000. Google obviously wants its next-gen devices to look and feel premium, with all-around touchscreens and haptic touchpads. The big problem is the requirement of a minimum of 16GB of RAM, likely to help the laptop handle all these separate AI capabilities. The hope is that, if MediaTek can offer what’s essentially a year-old high-end Chrombook chip, it may be able to keep costs down.
Sure, there’s little reason to hope for affordability in this day and age. But before you start shattering my dreams, at least let me languish in this warm pool of optimism for a little while longer.
