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If you keep a close eye on consumer tech news throughout the year, then you can probably tell that things in the smart mobile space are about to get a lot more interesting – MediaTek has finally announced the launch of its new premium flagship mobile SoC, the Dimensity 9300. Poised to power a number of flagship Android devices, MediaTek’s new chipset is also set to rival the likes of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which made its debut fairly recently.
With that said, what can we expect from MediaTek’s latest powerhouse SoC? Let’s take a look.
Super-sized Upgrades
The 9300 packs MediaTek’s APU 790 AI processor, which the company says is designed to improve generative AI performance and energy efficiency for enhanced edge computing. According to MediaTek, the APU 790 is able to double the integer and floating-point operations performance, while reducing power consumption by 45%.
The 9300 is also equipped with Arm’s Immortalis-G720 GPU, which should allow for better gaming experiences thanks to a 46% boost in GPU performance, without spending too much power. MediaTek claims that the Dimensity 9300 can also deliver console-level illumination effects during gaming sessions, all at a steady 60 fps.
Additionally, the 9300 is also equipped for AI-intensive workloads – the chip’s APU 790 is up to eight times faster than the previous generation, allowing it for faster processing with AI-focused tasks such as Stable Diffusion. This is combined with MediaTek’s NeuroPilot memory hardware compression for better memory management, and provides support for LLMs such as Meta Llama 2, Baichuan 2, Baidu AI LLM, and more.
Taking Aim
Based on the chip’s All-Big-Core architecture, MediaTek believes that its new premium SoC will be able to out-perform the 8 Gen 3, which itself is a much-anticipated follow-up to last year’s well-received Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. With that being said, it’s clear that MediaTek is also pushing towards better and more efficient integration of AI into mobile processing platforms.
As we saw with the Tensor G3 and 8 Gen 3, it looks like MediaTek is likewise going all-in with AI-based computing. MediaTek President Joe Chen comments:
“The Dimensity 9300 is MediaTek’s most powerful flagship chip yet, bringing a huge boost in raw computing power to flagship smartphones with our groundbreaking All Big Core design. This unique architecture, combined with our upgraded on-chip AI Processing Unit, will usher in a new era of generative AI applications as developers push the limits with edge AI and hybrid AI computing capabilities.”
By comparison, the Dimensity 9300’s architecture comes with 4 Ultra-Large Core + 4 Big Cores, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 features 1 Ultra-Large Core + 5 Big Cores + 2 Small Cores.
We still have to see how the 9300 fares out in the real world, although at the moment we do have an idea of what to expect from the new chipset, at least on paper. Based on some early benchmark comparisons, the Dimensity 9300 is able to go neck-and-neck with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, with an AnTuTu score of 2,130,000+, and even out-performing the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 by over 40%, based on early GeekBench v6 Multi-Core tests.
Imaging and Connectivity
For imaging hardware, the Dimensity 9300 features a low-power AI-ISP and always-on HDR up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second (fps), 4K video at 30 fps cinematic mode with real-time bokeh tracking for professional quality bokeh enhancements, as well as 4K AI Noise Reduction (AI-NR) and AI processing on RAW photos and videos. There’s also support for Android 14’s Ultra HDR format in addition to ambient light adaptive HDR recovery technology.
For wireless connectivity, the Dimensity 9300 features support for Wi-Fi 7 speeds of up to 6.5 Gbps, and comes with MediaTek’s Xtra RangeTM Technology for improved long-range connectivity. There’s also Multi-Link Hotspot technology onboard, which allows the Dimensity 9300 to achieve smartphone tethering speeds by up to 3X, compared to competitive solutions.
With all that being said, MediaTek says that we can expect to see the first Dimensity 9300-powered smartphones by the end of 2023.
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