We met with the Zopo Speed 8 at MWC, and it was our first encounter with the Mediatek Helio X20 chipset, which boasts a 10-core CPU. We now have a final unit at the office for some more tinkering, and you can see how we might be eager to run some benchmarks to see what all the fuss is about.

Just a quick reminder, the Mediatek Helio X20 (or MT6797, for the more technically inclined) features a deca-core CPU with a couple of Cortex-A72 cores clocked at up to 2.3GHz, four Cortex-A53's at 2.0GHz and another four Cortex-A53's, which can can only go as high as 1.4GHz. On board the Speed 8 there are 4GB of RAM, the chipset's maximum supported amount.

We start off with the most relevant of benchmarks, the CPU-focused GeekBench. Quite expectedly, the Speed 8 scores ahead of the majority in the multi-core test, only to be beaten by the Galaxy S7 edge and its Exynos 8890. Flagships packing the mighty Snapdragon 820 come close, but still end up defeated.

In the midrange, the Samsung Galaxy A9 does have two more Cortex-A72 cores inside its Snapdragon 652 chipset, but apparently the sheer number of cores has its say here. Not as well optimized, the similarly equipped Vivo V3max is even lower down the chart. The Helio X10 is clearly lagging behind its big bro, as evidenced by the Redmi Note 3's score, and the Snapdragon variant of Xiaomi's phablet is even further down.

GeekBench 3 (multi-core)

Higher is better

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

6600

Zopo Speed 8

5543

LG G5

5362

Xiaomi Mi 5

5358

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

4759

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

4537

OnePlus 2

4429

Vivo V3Max

3978

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

3570

Oppo F1 Plus

3242

Huawei Honor 5X

3053

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)

3039

Meizu m3 note

3028

Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)

2887

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

2745

ZUK Z1

2341

In single-core the custom Kryos in the Qualcomm's latest and greatest SoC are markedly better performers than the Cortex-A72 that the Helio X20 relies on. Samsung's Mongoose cores are also superior, but that's about it - all the rest place behind the Speed 8.

GeekBench 3 (single-core)

Higher is better

LG G5

2328

Xiaomi Mi 5

2305

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

2151

Zopo Speed 8

1834

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

1573

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

1466

Vivo V3Max

1238

Oppo F1 Plus

857

Meizu m3 note

807

Huawei Honor 5X

705

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

628

On Antutu, the Zopo Speed 8 is considerably behind the flagships, and yet far out of reach of the rest of the midrangers. Coincidentally, the score of the Helio X20 (Speed 8) is twice as much as that of the Helio X10 (Redmi Note 3). The X10 is also lagging behind the Snapdragon 652 in this benchmark.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

LG G5

134541

Xiaomi Mi 5

131758

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

129229

Zopo Speed 8

90137

Vivo V3Max

76170

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

75051

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

64591

ZUK Z1

54884

Oppo F1 Plus

51299

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

45474

Meizu m3 note

44898

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

38359

Huawei Honor 5X

35469

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)

35134

Basemark 2.0 puts the Zopo in the middle of the pack with a virtually identical score as the Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML and its Intel Atom Z3580. Here, the Snapdragon family shows a clear superiority, with the S820 on top, followed by the S810 (OnePlus 2) and S65x.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

Xiaomi Mi 5

2180

LG G5

2065

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

2050

OnePlus 2

1622

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

1537

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

1529

Zopo Speed 8

1227

Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)

1222

ZUK Z1

1178

Oppo F1 Plus

1092

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

1018

Huawei Honor 5X

874

Meizu m3 note

852

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

729

All too often we see chipsets geared towards crazy high CPU performance fail in the graphics department. That's not the case with the Helio X20 inside the Zopo Speed 8, though it's no record breaker either.

The quad-core Mali-T880MP4 is on par with (on occasion slightly better than) the Adreno 510 in the Snapdragon 650/652, and that's basically good enough. In Basemark X the Speed 8 inches ahead of said Snapdragons, but is a country mile behind leading GPUs of the Adreno 530 and Mali-T880MP12 caliber.

Basemark X

Higher is better

Xiaomi Mi 5

33110

LG G5

29456

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

28480

OnePlus 2

21937

Zopo Speed 8

15756

Vivo V3Max

15430

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

15290

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

14732

ZUK Z1

13596

Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (Z3580)

12426

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

8540

Oppo F1 Plus

6204

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)

5210

Huawei Honor 5X

5009

Meizu m3 note

4567

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

4072

In GFXBench the story is more of the same. With some flagships having QuadHD resolution, the superiority of the high-end chips may be less pronounced in onscreen tests, but it is there nonetheless. Speaking of raw GPU power, look at the normalized 1080p offscreen tests, where the Adreno 530 (G5, Mi 5) and Mali-T880MP12 (S7 edge) post up to 3 times higher figures than the Speed 8's Mali-T880MP4.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

LG G5

47

Xiaomi Mi 5

45

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

40

ZUK Z1

28

OnePlus 2

22

Zopo Speed 8

14

Vivo V3Max

14

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

14

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

13

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

8.5

Oppo F1 Plus

7

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)

5.7

Huawei Honor 5X

5.6

Meizu m3 note

5.4

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

4.2

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

Xiaomi Mi 5

30

LG G5

30

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

29

OnePlus 2

16

Zopo Speed 8

11

Vivo V3Max

9.4

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

9.3

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

9.1

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

4

Oppo F1 Plus

3.3

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

2.6

Meizu m3 note

2.5

At the actual respective display resolutions the difference gets smaller, with the Speed 8 only needing to render a bit more than half the pixels of the G5 and S7 edge. The more demanding Manhattan 3.1 test further narrows the gap, and actually puts the Speed 8 ahead of midrange phablet competition.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

Xiaomi Mi 5

43

ZUK Z1

28

LG G5

28

Samsung Galaxy S7 edge

27

OnePlus 2

22

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (S650)

14

Vivo V3Max

14

Samsung Galaxy A9 (S652)

13

Zopo Speed 8

12

Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Helio X10)

7.9

Oppo F1 Plus

7

Huawei Honor 5X

6.1

Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016)

5.7

Meizu m3 note

5.4

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note

4.2

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better