With an unconventional design and superior performance, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 chipset – Mediatek

Also drawing on the past, the Dimensity 9300, built on TSMC’s 4nm+ N4P process, aims to power some of the best Android devices coming from Chinese manufacturers in 2024.

In an attempt to beat Qualcomm’s performance in benchmarks, MediaTek used an unconventional “all-core” CPU design in the Dimensity 9300, without the smaller performance cores typically used for low-power tasks. The CPU has a primary Cortex-X4 core clocked at 3.25 GHz, three additional X4 cores clocked at 2.85 GHz and four relatively slower Cortex-A720 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz. This contrasts with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 which consists of a core X4 core, five A720 cores, and a smaller A520 performance core.

MediaTek claims the 9300 offers 40% improved performance and 33% power savings over last year’s Dimensity 9200. Early benchmarks suggest the 9300 scores slightly higher than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

MediaTek claims that with larger cores, even though they consume more power per second, they can complete tasks faster for better overall performance. The company is betting that this unconventional design can excel in both processing power and power efficiency.

We also see significant improvements in the GPU, with the new 12-core Immortalis-G720 processor offering ray tracing capabilities and a 46% increase in performance over previous Dimensity chips, according to MediaTek. Additionally, MediaTek “matches” Qualcomm’s announcement of using the Stable Diffusion AI model, by creating an image in less than a second. Overall AI performance is said to have doubled compared to previous MediaTek chips, making each device ideal for generative AI projects.

Additional features of the Dimensity 9300 include support for 180Hz displays with WQHD resolution, a dedicated camera image stabilization module and compatibility with Wi-Fi 7 networks.

However, an ongoing issue for MediaTek remains the limited adoption of its flagship Dimensity series outside of China so far. The MediaTek vice president said that the Dimensity 9300 devices will not reach the US market anytime soon, with China and Europe leading global adoption at the moment.

The first smartphones to feature the new Dimensity 9300 are expected to be released in November. This will likely include Vivo’s upcoming X100 series, which is positioned to compete with Xiaomi’s 14-series smartphones equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoCs.