MediaTek performed the underdog function for a few years however its latest launches confirmed more and more aggressive choices on the cellular SoC area. Its newest processor for Android telephones, the Dimensity 9400, brings the most effective CPU and GPU cores from ARM to combat for the highest spot within the efficiency (and effectivity) charts. Let’s have a look.
The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 follows the weird format adopted by its predecessor with out the effectivity (small) Cortex-A5x cores in use for greater than 10 years already. For the 2025 season, the Dimensity 9400 brings one Cortex-X925 huge CPU (launched earlier this 12 months by ARM), with three Cortex-X4 CPUs from 2023 (from the identical era as the massive cores on the Dimensity 9300), and 4 Cortex-A720.
| MediaTek Dimensity 9400 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 | Samsung Exynos 2400 | Google Tensor G4 | Apple A18 Professional | MediaTek Dimensity 9300 | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 | Google Tensor G3 | Apple A17 Professional | |
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On the graphics facet, the Dimensity 9400 packs 12 cores of the ARM Immortalis-G925 GPU, protecting assist for raytracing rendering, and introducing ARM’s tackle rendering super-scaling: ARM Accuracy Tremendous Decision—AASR, to hitch the tsunami of rival acronyms: DLSS, FSR, XeSS, GSR, PSSR, and the non acronym MetalFX.
MediaTek calls its implementation HyperEngine Tremendous Decision (HESR, anybody?) however the fundamentals are the identical for all of them: Render a gaming scene at a decrease decision internally to increase it to the next one on-screen, saving on energy and efficiency at the price of some artifacts. For AASR, ARM primarily based its approach on AMD’s FSR2 temporal upscaler, which interpolates pixels primarily based on information gathered from previous frames.
The brand new chip makes use of TSMC’s second-generation 3-nm-class course of node, often called N3E. MediaTek is the second firm to publicly announce a consumer-market chip on that node, just a few weeks after Apple’s A18 chips launched with the iPhone 16 line.
Apple is clearly TSMC’s preferential associate, however MediaTek can be taking advantage of its shut relationship with the Taiwanese foundry. Eric Fisher, MediaTek’s Company Vice President, highlighted this throughout a press occasion, noting that the corporate can be working with different producers like UMC, World Foundries, and Intel Foundry.
In comparison with the earlier era chip—made on TSMC’s N4P course of—, MediaTek advertises a 28% sustained CPU efficiency enchancment (35% on single-threaded duties), or a 40% lower in energy consumption. Equally, the GPU facet guarantees 41% peak efficiency or 44% energy financial savings.
| MediaTek Dimensity 9400 (MediaTek’s estimates) |
Dimensity 9300 (Xiaomi 14T Professional evaluation) |
Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (RedMagic 9s evaluation) |
Google Tensor G4 (Pixel 9 Professional evaluation) |
Apple A18 (iPhone 16 evaluation) |
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Take these numbers with some skepticism till third-party opinions go dwell, however not less than they appear believable. For the AnTuTu followers (which Chinese language cellphone manufacturers are the largest ones, apparently), MediaTek even gave a 3,000,000 rating for the Dimensity 9400 underneath a “laboratory surroundings” (AKA no thermal constraints).
Talking of constraints, to not be restricted by 2024’s generative AI development, MediaTek is touting “agentic AI” as the following “turning level” and was fast to remind us that the Dimensity 9400 is suitable with it. In brief, agentic AI may be thought of a function that doesn’t require prompts to behave, utilizing your information and circumstances to autonomously make choices and take actions. Nevertheless, simply as we at the moment are seeing sensible makes use of of gen-AI, don’t count on to see agentic AI anytime quickly.
Reality be advised, lengthy earlier than ChatGPT and Steady Diffusion, cellular chip corporations have been already together with AI processing on their chips, however for its Eighth-generation AI core, MediaTek is adopting the NPU title as a substitute of the beforehand used (and complicated) time period “APU”.
Again to sensible enhancements, MediaTek touts an improved Imagiq 1090 picture processor (ISP) with improved zoom each in digital magnification and HDR assist, with a decrease energy utilization whereas recording video. The Dimensity 9400 video processing block now helps 8K60 encoding with HEVC at 8-bit depth, and video decoding presents the identical codec assist because the 9300 predecessor: AVC (h.264), HEVC (h.265), VP9, and AV1.
The Dimensity 9400 is suitable with the newest Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7 requirements, identical to its predecessor. MediaTek, nonetheless, famous that the combo chip makes use of a extra environment friendly course of node, promising 50% decrease energy consumption, improved vary, and even a 25% effectivity enchancment in demanding Wi-Fi hotspot use.
The Dimensity modem now helps the 3GPP Rel-17 normal on the mobile facet. Whereas downlink speeds stay capped at 7 Gbps utilizing solely sub-6GHz bands, as with the earlier era, MediaTek guarantees improved community utilization and lowered energy consumption in real-world situations.
Availability
In accordance with MediaTek, the primary smartphones powered by the Dimensity 9400 will likely be out there “beginning in This autumn 2024”. So be prepared for upcoming bulletins from the standard manufacturers comparable to Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.
With MediaTek’s main market share within the Android market and the vital design win on the Galaxy Tab S10 sequence, the corporate is forecasting a 50% development within the flagship SoC marketplace for 2024 compared to 2023.
The stress is now on Qualcomm’s facet on the way it will take care of the Taiwanese problem on the flagship market. With the Snapdragon summit scheduled for later this month, it gained’t be lengthy earlier than we have now that reply.
