If these benchmark results are real, MediaTek is about to change the smartphone landscape

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen Qualcomm’s dominance in the chipset market continue to dwindle thanks to MediaTek. While MediaTek has been able to provide some impressive competition in the mid-range and budget space, this hasn’t been the case when it comes to the flagship market.

Back in November of last year, MediaTek announced its all-new Dimensity 9000 chipset, which has its sights set on the likes of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, Google Tensor, and even Apple’s A15 Bionic. Unfortunately, we have yet to see any devices actually released with the Dimensity 9000, so we have been unable to truly see how MediaTek has improved with a flagship chipset.

It's going to be a chip for a $500 phone, see if you can get that kind of performance in your $1000+ Galaxy phones? https://t.co/razb8MhHdq

— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) March 13, 2022

Despite the lack of Dimensity 9000 devices, we can thank @UniverseIce for giving us a glimpse at what is likely the first Geekbench scores for a phone powered by MediaTek’s latest processor. The device in question comes from Xiaomi and is reportedly powered by the 9000. As we can see this phone offers a 1309 single-core score and a 4546 multi-core score. For the sake of comparison, here’s what some of the latest phones have provided in the way of Geekbench scores:

• Google Pixel 6 Pro (Google Tensor)
  • Single-Core: 1035
  • Multi-Core: 2870
• Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1)
  • Single-Core: 1224
  • Multi-Core: 3445
• iPhone 13 Pro Max (Apple A15 Bionic)
  • Single-Core: 1733
  • Multi-Core: 4751

All of this is to say that whenever we finally get a phone that is powered by the Dimensity 9000, it’s clear that Apple will have to start looking in the rear-view mirror. The only potential problem with these results is that it comes from an unknown device, meaning that it may be optimized for benchmarking but not real-world use. Sometimes we see new chipsets show up on Geekbench with incredible scores, only to see that those don’t translate to the retail version of the phone. But we’re definitely keeping our fingers crossed that this won’t be the case when the Dimensity 9000 arrives.

Finally, Ice Universe suggests that these results will be in “a chip for a $500 phone”. So it’s going to be interesting to see whether MediaTek will be able to flip the smartphone world upside down once more of these devices are made available.