Mali-450 — Mali-g31 Mp2 Vs

The Mali-450 series was announced way back in Q3 2012. To put that in perspective, when this GPU launched, the iPhone 5 had just arrived, and the term "4G" was still a luxury.

Built on ARM's Utgard architecture, the Mali-450 was the upgrade to the legendary Mali-400. It was designed for HD-ready devices. The "MP4" suffix means it has four pixel processors (fragments) and one triangle (vertex) processor per core. For its time, it was revolutionary, powering devices like the Rockchip RK3288 TV boxes and early MediaTek tablets.

[1] ARM Holdings. Mali GPU Architecture Whitepaper: Utgard to Valhall. ARM IHI 0079A, 2022.
[2] GFXBench 5.0 – Kishonti Informatics. Offscreen rendering comparisons, 2025.
[3] Android Compatibility Definition Document (CDD), version 14, §7.1 Graphics Requirements.
[4] L. Wei, “Power Modeling for Legacy Mobile GPUs,” IEEE Embedded Systems Letters, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 78–81, 2023.

Appendix A: Clock-for-Clock Fill Rate Derivation Mali-g31 Mp2 Vs Mali-450

(End of paper)

Title: The Evolution of Entry-Level Graphics: A Comparative Analysis of the Mali-G31 MP2 and Mali-450

Introduction

In the landscape of embedded systems and consumer electronics, the System on Chip (SoC) serves as the heart of the device. While Central Processing Units (CPUs) often garner the most attention in marketing materials, the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is the critical determinant of user experience, particularly in multimedia applications and user interface fluidity. For years, ARM’s Mali series has dominated the mid-range and entry-level markets. Two GPUs that frequently appear in these segments are the Mali-450 and the Mali-G31 MP2. While they often target similar price points and use cases—such as Smart TVs, streaming boxes, and low-end smartphones—they represent two fundamentally different eras of graphics architecture. The transition from the Mali-450 to the Mali-G31 MP2 marks a significant shift from raw fill-rate focused designs to modern, API-compliant efficiency.

The Mali-450: The Veteran of Legacy Performance

The ARM Mali-450 MP was a staple of the entry-level market for nearly a decade, finding its way into popular SoCs like the Amlogic S905X and various Rockchip processors. It is based on the Utgard architecture, an older design philosophy that prioritized pixel throughput. The Mali-450 series was announced way back in Q3 2012

The "MP" designation stands for "Multi-Processor," and the Mali-450 was available in various configurations, often appearing as the MP2 (two cores) or MP4 (four cores). In many popular TV box implementations, the Mali-450 MP2 was the standard. The architecture

The Mali-G31 was announced in 2018 as part of ARM’s new Valhall architecture family (specifically, the ultra-efficient G31 is based on the Bifrost architecture, clarified below). It was designed for the Cortex-A53 and A55 cores, targeting the modern "ultra-efficiency" market.

Replace it immediately. You are using technology from 2012. You cannot run modern banking apps smoothly, WebView (used by Chrome) will lag, and you are missing critical security updates. The GPU is the least of your worries. Appendix A: Clock-for-Clock Fill Rate Derivation

Older titles designed for the Mali‑450 run comfortably at 30 fps on 720p screens, but modern mobile games—especially those employing physically‑based rendering (PBR) or complex particle systems—strain the older GPU, often forcing developers to lower settings dramatically. The G31’s improved rasterizer and texture handling allow many contemporary games to run at 60 fps on 1080p displays with medium graphics presets, delivering a noticeably smoother experience.

Author: AI Research Lab
Publication Date: April 12, 2026
Conference: Embedded Graphics & Compute Symposium (EGCS)