Dimension 9000 processor introduced: Snapdragon, scared

Medieka processors have been a cheaper alternative to Qualcomm’s Snapdragons for many years. In recent years, however, Dimension processors have been slowly catching up with their more expensive and efficient competitors. Now, less than two weeks after the introduction of Qualcomm’s new flagship, Mediatek has unveiled its flagship, the Dimensity 9000. The report came from the Android Authority.

Dimensity 9000: Processor suitable for flagships

In recent years, we have seen Dimension 1000 and Dimensity 1200 processors. However, they still played the second violin compared to Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 888. Manufacturers continued to prefer more expensive competition, which also has a more significant name. The mentioned Dimensity processors were used only in more affordable flagships, for example in the recently introduced Xiaomi 11T model.

Finally, Finbarr Moynihan, Vice President and General Manager of Mediatek, admits this:

“We are intentionally moving to the level of flagships and I think this is probably a space that the people of Mediatek have not historically associated with. To be fair, I don’t think Mediatek has ever been at the true flagship level of smartphones. To some extent, our competitor has had this pitch for himself for too long. ”

New cores, better performance

However, the Dimensity 9000 is likely to shuffle the cards – it’s a processor built on the latest 4 nm technology that will deliver higher performance with lower power consumption. It is also Mediatek’s first processor to use the powerful new Cortex-X core, built on the latest ARM V9 architecture. It is an eight-core processor with the following set of cores: one Cortex-X2 core with a clock speed of 3.05 GHz, three Cortex-A710 cores with a clock speed of 2.85 GHz and four Cortex-A510 cores with a clock speed of 1.8 GHz.

The company has high hopes for the new Cortex-X2 core, mentioning a 35% increase in performance and a 37% increase in efficiency, compared to the Corex-X1 core, made on a 5 nm process. However, it will be important to compare this processor with future processors (Snapdragon 898 or Snapdragon 8 Gen. 1 will be released in two weeks, we will see Exynos 2200 later). These should already be on the 4 nm process.

The Dimensity 9000 Mediatek uses a Mali-G710 MC10 GPU. It is the latest GPU from ARM and its performance should be 35% higher, along with a 60% increase in efficiency compared to Snapdragon 888. Again, the new and old generation are compared here, for better comparison we will have to wait for the new Snapdragon.

Another fact that we must not forget is that the graphics cores used in Mediatek processors have historically lagged behind the competition. We are talking about competition with Mali graphics – Exynos and Kirin processors have always had a newer GPU than Dimensity.

Connectivity, Ray-Tracing and more

The modem on this processor does not support more powerful mmWave networks. It only supports traditional sub-6GHz 5G. Support for mmWave is said to come in 2022. However, even without it, it supports theoretical transfer rates of 7 Gbps. The chipset supports Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6E, has complete GNSS support, as well as support for LPDDR5X RAM with a speed of 7500 Mbps.

The processor supports Ray-Tracing software, a feature that players know from games. In time, support for Vulcan is expected to increase. In addition, the chipset has a 5th generation APU that is used to perform machine learning tasks. Compared to the 3rd generation APU in Dimensity 1200, we should see up to a 400% increase in performance.

The chipset also supports a single 320 MP sensor or three 32 MP sensors. The Dimensity 1200 lacked 8K shooting, but the Dimensity 9000 will already support 8K at 24 frames per second. Video enthusiasts will also enjoy the AV1 decoder, although without an encoder yet.

When will we see the first devices with the Dimensity 9000? According to the vice president of Mediathek, it will probably be the end of the 1st quarter or in the 2nd quarter of next year.

Dimensity 9000 vs. Dimensity 1200

	Mediatek Dimensity 9000	MediaTek Dimensity 1200
CPU	1x Cortex-X2 @ 3.05GHz 3x Cortex-A710 @ 2.85GHz 4x Cortex-A510 @ 1.8GHz	1x Cortex-A78 @ 3GHz 3x Cortex-A78 @ 2.6GHz 4x Cortex-A55 @ 2GHz
GPU	Arm Mali-G710 MC10	Arm Mali-G77 MP9
Display	180Hz FHD+	168Hz FHD+ 90Hz QHD+
Machine learning	APU 5.0	APU 3.0
Modem	Helio M80 architecture Sub-6GHz	Helio M70 5G Sub-6GHz
Cameras	320MP one 32MP+32MP+32MP tri 8K / 24fps video recording	200MP one 32MP + 16MP two 4K / 60fps video recording
Manufacturing process	4nm	6nm