HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G vs Intel Processor N50

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CPU comparison with benchmarks


HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G CPU1 vs CPU2 Intel Processor N50
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Intel Processor N50

CPU comparison

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G or Intel Processor N50 - which processor is faster? In this comparison we look at the differences and analyze which of these two CPUs is better. We compare the technical data and benchmark results.

The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G has 8 cores with 8 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 2.86 GHz. Up to 8 GB of memory is supported in 4 memory channels. The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G was released in Q3/2019.

The Intel Processor N50 has 2 cores with 2 threads and clocks with a maximum frequency of 3.40 GHz. The CPU supports up to 16 GB of memory in 1 memory channels. The Intel Processor N50 was released in Q1/2023.
HiSilicon Kirin (29) Family Intel Processor N (5)
HiSilicon Kirin 990 (3) CPU group Intel Processor N50/N100/N200 (5)
8 Generation 13
Cortex-A76 / Cortex-A55 Architecture Alder Lake N
Mobile Segment Mobile
-- Predecessor --
-- Successor --

CPU Cores and Base Frequency

The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G has 8 CPU cores and can calculate 8 threads in parallel. The clock frequency of the HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is 2.86 GHz while the Intel Processor N50 has 2 CPU cores and 2 threads can calculate simultaneously. The clock frequency of the Intel Processor N50 is at 1.80 GHz (3.40 GHz).

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Characteristic Intel Processor N50
8 Cores 2
8 Threads 2
hybrid (Prime / big.LITTLE) Core architecture normal
No Hyperthreading No
No Overclocking ? No
2.86 GHz
2x Cortex-A76
A-Core 1.80 GHz (3.40 GHz)
2x Gracemont
2.09 GHz
2x Cortex-A76
B-Core --
1.86 GHz
4x Cortex-A55
C-Core --

NPU AI performance

The performance values of the processor's AI unit. The isolated NPU performance is specified here, the total AI performance (NPU+CPU+iGPU) can be higher. Processors with support for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can process many calculations, especially audio, image and video processing, much faster than classic processors.

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Characteristic Intel Processor N50
HUAWEI HiAI 2.0 AI hardware --
Da Vinci Architecture. 1x Ascend Lite + 1x Ascend Tiny AI specifications --
-- NPU + CPU + iGPU --

Integrated graphics (iGPU)

The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G or Intel Processor N50 has integrated graphics, called iGPU for short. The iGPU uses the system's main memory as graphics memory and sits on the processor's die.

ARM Mali-G76 MP16 GPU Intel UHD Graphics 13th Gen (16 EU)
0.60 GHz GPU frequency 0.25 GHz
-- GPU (Turbo) 0.75 GHz
Bifrost 3 GPU Generation 13
7 nm Technology 10 nm
2 Max. displays 3
16 Compute units 16
256 Shader 128
No Hardware Raytracing No
No Frame Generation No
4 GB Max. GPU Memory 64 GB
12 DirectX Version 12.1

Hardware codec support

A photo or video codec that is accelerated in hardware can greatly accelerate the working speed of a processor and extend the battery life of notebooks or smartphones when playing videos.

ARM Mali-G76 MP16 GPU Intel UHD Graphics 13th Gen (16 EU)
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (8 bit) Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec h265 / HEVC (10 bit) Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec h264 Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec VP9 Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec VP8 Decode / Encode
No Codec AV1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec AVC Decode / Encode
Decode / Encode Codec VC-1 Decode
Decode / Encode Codec JPEG Decode / Encode

Memory & PCIe

The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G can use up to 8 GB of memory in 4 memory channels. The maximum memory bandwidth is --. The Intel Processor N50 supports up to 16 GB of memory in 1 memory channels and achieves a memory bandwidth of up to 38.4 GB/s.

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Characteristic Intel Processor N50
LPDDR4X-2133 Memory LPDDR5-4800, DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200
8 GB Max. Memory 16 GB
4 (Quad Channel) Memory channels 1 (Single Channel)
-- Max. Bandwidth 38.4 GB/s
No ECC No
-- L2 Cache 2.00 MB
2.00 MB L3 Cache 6.00 MB
-- PCIe version 3.0
-- PCIe lanes 9
-- PCIe Bandwidth 8.9 GB/s

Thermal Management

The thermal design power (TDP for short) of the HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is 6 W, while the Intel Processor N50 has a TDP of 6 W. The TDP specifies the necessary cooling solution that is required to cool the processor sufficiently.

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Characteristic Intel Processor N50
6 W TDP (PL1 / PBP) 6 W
-- TDP (PL2) --
-- TDP up --
-- TDP down --
-- Tjunction max. 105 °C

Technical details

The HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G is manufactured in 7 nm and has 2.00 MB cache. The Intel Processor N50 is manufactured in 10 nm and has a 8.00 MB cache.

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Characteristic Intel Processor N50
7 nm Technology 10 nm
Chiplet Chip design Monolithic
Armv8-A (64 bit) Instruction set (ISA) x86-64 (64 bit)
-- ISA extensions SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2
-- Socket BGA
None Virtualization VT-x, VT-x EPT, VT-d
No AES-NI Yes
Android Operating systems Windows 10, Windows 11, Linux
Q3/2019 Release date Q1/2023
-- Release price --
show more data show more data


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Average performance in benchmarks

⌀ Single core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G (96%)
Intel Processor N50 (100%)
⌀ Multi core performance in 1 CPU benchmarks
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G (100%)
Intel Processor N50 (42%)

Geekbench 6 (Single-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The single-core benchmark only evaluates the performance of the fastest CPU core, the number of CPU cores in a processor is irrelevant here.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G
8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz
996 (96%)
Intel Processor N50 Intel Processor N50
2C 2T @ 3.40 GHz
1042 (100%)

Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 6 is a benchmark for modern computers, notebooks and smartphones. What is new is an optimized utilization of newer CPU architectures, e.g. based on the big.LITTLE concept and combining CPU cores of different sizes. The multi-core benchmark evaluates the performance of all of the processor's CPU cores. Virtual thread improvements such as AMD SMT or Intel's Hyper-Threading have a positive impact on the benchmark result.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G
8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz
3244 (100%)
Intel Processor N50 Intel Processor N50
2C 2T @ 3.20 GHz
1376 (42%)

iGPU - FP32 Performance (Single-precision GFLOPS)

The theoretical computing performance of the internal graphics unit of the processor with simple accuracy (32 bit) in GFLOPS. GFLOPS indicates how many billion floating point operations the iGPU can perform per second.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G
ARM Mali-G76 MP16 @ 0.60 GHz
737 (100%)
Intel Processor N50 Intel Processor N50
Intel UHD Graphics 13th Gen (16 EU) @ 0.75 GHz
192 (26%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Single-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The single-core test only uses one CPU core, the amount of cores or hyperthreading ability doesn't count.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G
8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz
757 (100%)
Intel Processor N50 Intel Processor N50
2C 2T @ 3.40 GHz
0 (0%)

Geekbench 5, 64bit (Multi-Core)

Geekbench 5 is a cross plattform benchmark that heavily uses the systems memory. A fast memory will push the result a lot. The multi-core test involves all CPU cores and taks a big advantage of hyperthreading.
HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G
8C 8T @ 2.86 GHz
2855 (100%)
Intel Processor N50 Intel Processor N50
2C 2T @ 3.20 GHz
0 (0%)

Devices using this processor

HiSilicon Kirin 990 4G Intel Processor N50
Huawei Mate 30 Pro Unknown

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