A couple of years ago, we did not even consider MediaTek as a competitor to Qualcomm since the latter was ahead in everything, whether it was the CPU performance, GPU performance, or power efficiency. But then MediaTek decided to change some things, and the change began with the introduction of its “G” series of chipsets in 2019. This series brought some of the best chipsets in terms of performance for budget and mid-range devices. But an even bigger change came in the form of the “Dimensity” series of chipsets. This series included chipsets with 5G support, and currently, we have Dimensity chips in almost every price segment, whether it is the budget/mid-range segment or even the tablets.
But still, there was something MediaTek was missing out on. Its highest-end Dimensity chip of this year was unable to come close to the highest-end Qualcomm chip. But things are going to change now because the all-new MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SOC is now here, which is going to be MediaTek’s flagship chip for next year.
First of all, this is the world’s first chip built on the 4nm fabrication process (TSMC) which means not only this is a very powerful SOC, this is also a very power-efficient chip. And that’s not the only “World’s First” that this chip has to boast of. It is also the world’s first chip featuring the new ARM v9 architecture, which means new CPU & GPUs as well.
Speaking of the CPU arrangement, there are eight cores in total where there is one Cortex-X2 ultra-core clocked at 3.05GHz, three Cortex-A710 super-core clocked at 2.85GHz, and four Cortex-A510 efficiency cores clocked at 1.8GHz. This chip has a 14MB cache (8MB L3 + 6MB System-level), so compared to the 8MB cache, there is 7% improved performance and 25% improved bandwidth consumption.
In terms of the GPU, this chip is rocking the new Mali G710 GPU, which features 10 cores. The company also introduced a new raytracing SDK which will enable developers to bring visual enhancements to their games, similar to what we see in PC gaming. This GPU can support up to a 180Hz Full-HD+ display.
MediaTek Dimensity 9000 supports LPDDR5X RAM with speeds up to 7500Mbps. There is a 5th generation AI processor (APU) that offers up to four times better efficiency compared to the predecessor. In fact, the company claims that compared to the Google Tensor chip, the Dimensity 9000 offers 16% better AI performance which is incredible because Google’s Tensor chip is all about AI performance.
This is also the world’s first chip that supports Bluetooth 5.3. For imaging, there is an 18-bit HDR ISP which is so powerful that you can shoot 4K video from three cameras at the same time. This ISP supports up to a 320-megapixel camera sensor.
And finally, since it is a 5G chip, there is an improved 5G modem as well that offers up to 3x better uplink performance than the last generation. MediaTek also says that this is the only 5G smartphone modem to support R16 UL Tx Switching for both SUL and NR UL-CA based connections.
MediaTek Dimensity 9000 will make its debut in smartphones in Q1 2022.