Ever since the official release of the Dimensity 9000 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, there has been a constant argument as to which of these chips is better.
Undoubtedly, Qualcomm has always been ahead in the flagship MediaTek space. However, it seems that the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 will close this gap. Both the Dimensity 9000 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 are basically the same. However, while the former uses the TSMC 4nm manufacturing process, the latter uses Samsung’s 4nm process.
So which chipset is better for gaming, battery life, and camera performance?
Table of Contents
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 specs:
The CPU of the chipset retains the three-cluster design. There is a Prime Core with an ARM Cortex-X2 core clocked at 3.0 GHz. There are also three “supporting” performance cores based on the newer ARM Cortex-A710 standard. These run at 2.5 GHz. Finally, we have four efficiency cores that also feature the new ARM Cortex-A510 standard at 1.8 GHz.
Overall, the new CPU is 20% faster than that of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. It will also reduce power consumption by up to 30%. This is certainly a significant upgrade. For example, the recently announced Xiaomi 12 is 20% faster than its predecessor.
Now for the GPU part. The new chipset introduced the new Adreno 730 GPU with a 30% increase in performance and up to 25% power savings thanks to the new architecture. Qualcomm has developed three elite gaming features, one of which allows developers to strike a balance between performance and power efficiency. The Adreno Frame Motion Engine allows the GPU to render a game at twice the frame rate while consuming the same amount of power. Alternatively, the FPS can remain the same and the power consumption can be halved.
Meanwhile, the capacity for the camera has also been increased – the new 18-bit ISP (Image Signal Processing) manages to process an almost unbelievable amount of 3.2 gigapixels per second. In addition, it allows the recording of 8K HDR videos – while you can even take additional 64 MP photos.
All of this should also offer better low-light performance by up to 5X better than before. For example, for HDR videos, 4 different exposure levels are recorded in real-time in order to be able to record the dynamics better. In addition, there is a dedicated bokeh engine that is only there to unsharp-mask the background in video recordings. All this will bring great joy to everyone who likes to use their smartphone a lot for photo and video recording.
MediaTek Dimensity 9000 specs:
The Dimensity 9000 chip uses TSMC’s 4nm process + ARMv9 architecture combination and features a powerful Cortex-X2 core. In addition, it has 3 ARM Cortex-A710 large cores (frequency up to 2.85 GHz) and 4 ARM Cortex-A510 energy efficiency cores. This chip also supports LPDDR5X memory and the speed can reach 7500 Mbps.
Dimensity 9000 uses a flagship 18-bit HDR ISP image signal processor. This technology can record HDR video with three cameras at the same time. In addition, the chip has a low power consumption. This chip has a powerful ISP processing speed of up to 9 billion pixels/sec. It also supports triple exposure for triple cameras as well as up to 320 MP cameras. In terms of Al, Dimensity 9000 uses MediaTek’s fifth-generation Al processor APU. This is 4 times more energy-efficient than the previous generation. It can provide a high-efficiency Al experience for recording, gaming, video, and other applications. In terms of gaming, Dimensity 9000 uses the ARM Mali-G710 GPU and has launched a mobile ray tracing SDK kit.
Benchmark comparison
Now some of the industry’s reputable performance test databases have published test results for these processors. Let’s take a look at the performance of both chips from the results available so far.
On AnTutu 9.0.7, MediaTek Dimensity 9000 scores 1,017,488. The CPU score is 256,987, the GPU score is 393,810, the MEM score is 186,890, and the UX score is 179,801. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 scores 1,031,508 points on AnTuTu 9.2.1. The CPU score is 233,625, the GPU score is 451,861, the MEM score is 174,104, and the UX score is 171,918.
Next, let’s look at the GeekBench 5 running score. The Dimensity 9000 achieves 1273 points for single-core and 4324 for multi-core in GeekBench 5.1. The Snapdragon 8 Gen1 scores 1234 for the single-core and 3837 for the multi-core test on GeekBench 5.1.
Dimensity 9000 scored 17,573 in the PCMark Work 3.0 test, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 scored 17,084.
When it comes to graphics tests, the Dimensity 9000’s GFX Manhattan 3.0 test is 238 fps offscreen (1080p), while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 hits 267 fps. The Manhattan 3.1 offscreen (1080p) from Dimensity 9000 has 162 fps and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 has 176 fps.
From the benchmark results so far, it’s clear that both chips have their ups and downs. While the CPU scores seem to favor Dimensity 9000, the GPU seems to favor Snapdragon 8 Gen1. It seems that the overall performance of these chips is limited to how well they handle the temperature.
