MediaTek has come an extremely long way in the smartphone industry. There was a time when MediaTek processors were restricted to low and mid-range phones that couldn’t afford Snapdragon alternatives. They were sort of like less-premium Exynos chips (before those started getting more acceptable).
These days, MediaTek is an actual option for flagship manufacturers, especially in China. While Qualcomm still has better brand recognition, in the flagship tier, it is only edging MediaTek out by a little these days. The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 is coming later this year, and even if it doesn’t beat Qualcomm’s next chip, it is set to be an absolute monster.
Efficiency cores are such a thing of the past. These days, the most ambitious chips will need to throw all of their weight into big power cores. While that might mean that battery life takes a hit, with smaller manufacturing processes, power efficiency consistently improving, and smartphones adopting increasingly large batteries, the effect won’t be as noticeable as expected.
Unsurprisingly, with the Dimensity 9500 expected to launch in either September or October, the all-big core design will stay. Even better, thanks to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, we have a glimpse into the configuration it will adopt. It’ll bring:
- One Travis core
- Three Alto cores
- Four Gelas cores
It will also be built on TSMC’s N3P fabrication process, which differs from the N3E process on which the 9400 and 9400+ were made. For clarity, Travis and Alto cores are rumored to be built on the Cortex-X9 model from ARM, potentially breaking away from the one Cortex-X925 and three Cortex-X4 cores in last year’s flagship chip from MediaTek. Gelas, built on the new A7-series cores, won’t be as powerful as the others.
The Dimensity 9500’s GPU and Other Performance Specs See a Bump Up
The CPU cores aren’t the only thing that makes an SoC worth it or not. The GPU is arguably one of the most important components to pay attention to. This year, we’re expecting a new microarchitecture in a GPU called Immortalis-Drage. With it, power consumption should drop while ray-tracing ability improves.
The chip’s L3 cache will increase 33% to 16MB, while the SLC cache remains unchanged at 10MB. Support for UFS 4.1 will also be available, and we’ve already seen it start to trickle into the smartphone market. I have to talk about the NPU too, since we’re living in an AI world at the moment. It is expected to deliver up to 100 TOPS of AI processing power. For reference, the NPU in the Dimensity 9400 was reported at 50 TOPS.
| Category | Specifications (Rumored) |
| CPU Count | Octa-core |
| CPU Configuration | 1 + 3 + 4 (Travis, Alto, Gelas respectively) |
| GPU | Immortalis-Drage |
| L3 Cache | 16MB |
| SLC Cache | 10MB |
We Could See the Dimensity 9500 Break 4M on AnTuTu
Again, according to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, there’s a possibility that the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 could break past the 4M mark on AnTuTu. To be entirely clear, the 9400’s highest scores were around the 2.9M mark, so a jump to 4M would be bonkers. Regardless, I think it is entirely possible and I can’t wait to see what MediaTek brings this year.
