MediaTek has finally revealed when it plans to announce its next-generation flagship smartphone chipset, the Dimensity 9300. The upcoming chip is expected to power multiple flagship smartphones next year and will be announced on November 6, 2023, in China. It will compete with the Exynos 2400 that was announced earlier this month and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 that went official last night.
MediaTek Dimensity 9300 has eight high-performance CPU cores
While the Dimensity 9300 hasn't been announced yet, some of its specifications have leaked already. It is expected to be a 4nm chip (fabricated by TSMC) that has a peculiar CPU configuration. While all other smartphone chips use a combination of high-performance and power-efficient CPU cores based on ARM's architecture, the Dimensitry 9300 uses only high-performance CPU cores. According to previous leaks, the Dimensity 9300 has four Cortex-X4 CPU cores (one clocked at 3.25GHz and three clocked at 2.85GHz) and four Cortex-A720 CPU cores clocked at 2GHz. It also features Immortalis G720 MC12 GPU.
The Exynos 2400 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 have just one Cortex-X4 CPU core. That's three fewer Cortex-X4 CPU cores than the Dimensity 9300. This, in theory, could mean that the Dimensity 9300 could throttle a lot faster than the rival chips, so it will be quite interesting to see how MediaTek is planning to tame its ultra-powerful chip. Other features of the chip could include mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G, multi-band GPS, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC, and USB 3.2 Type-C. It could support high-resolution and high-refresh-rate screens and Hi-Res Audio in wireless and wired modes.
Leaked benchmarks of a Dimensity 9300-equipped phone revealed that its performance is similar to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and higher than the Exynos 2400, but all chips are quite fast, and the efficiency will determine which one among them will be the winner.
Author's Note: Cortex-X4 is designed to be a ‘prime' CPU core meant for high-performance tasks, but it consumes a lot of power. Cortex-A720 is designed to be a high-performance core, too, but it consumes a lot less power than the Cortex-X4. ARM designed Cortex-A520 CPU cores to be used with the Cortex-X4 and the Cortex-A720 for a balance of power and efficiency. However, MediaTek seems to have decided to use only high-performance CPU cores in the Dimensity 9300. It could lead to higher power consumption compared to other chips that use power-efficient CPU cores. So, the Dimensity 9300 powered phones could have shorted battery life in comparison.
Despite featuring only high-performance CPU cores, leaked benchmarks of the Dimensity 9300 don't show a credible improvement in performance over the recently announced Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. And that could be a huge issue for the Dimensity 9300.
