Upcoming MediaTek non-flagship Dimensity chip beats the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in benchmark test

MediaTek is the leading supplier of application processors for smartphones and for its current flagship chipset, the Dimensity 9300, MediaTek rolled the dice and came out a winner. The SoC does not feature a low-power efficiency CPU core which puts it at risk of overheating. But the Dimensity 9300 has done a strong job powering the Vivo X100 series and in May, MediaTek followed up with the Dimensity 9300+ which adds more support for AI. The Dimensity 9300 has generated over $1 billion in revenue for MediaTek.

The next flagship chip being developed by MediaTek is the Dimensity 9400 which is expected to feature one Cortex-X5 prime CPU core, three Cortex-X4 CPU cores, and four Cortex-A720 efficiency-performance cores. In March, MediaTek signed up its first customer for the unannounced Dimensity 9400. That company is Vivo which, as noted, uses the Dimensity 9300 SoC for its Vivo X100 series.

Meanwhile, another application processor (AP) that will be released later this year by MediaTek is the non-flagship Dimensity 8400. A post on Chinese social media site Weibo by known leaker Digital Chat Station reveals that the Dimensity 8400 scored between 1.7 million and 1.8 million points on the AnTuTu benchmark test which tops the score tallied by Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The latter tallied about 1.7 million points on AnTuTu.

Additionally, the Dimensity 8400 AP could also be a cheaper option for phone manufacturers, and devices using the chip could be priced as low as 1,500 yuan ($206.33). If the AnTuTu benchmark test results are valid, a phone manufacturer could equip a handset with a more powerful Dimensity 8400 AP instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and pay less for the chipset. One manufacturer expected to use the Dimensity 8400 SoC is Xiaomi.

In April, Digital Chat Station said that Xiaomi's Redmi unit is working on various smartphones that will be powered by chipsets such as the Dimensity 9300+, Dimensity 8400, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and the unannounced Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Three of these phones will feature a metal frame, glass body, 1.5K or 2K displays, large batteries and 100W fast charging.

The MediaTek 8400 SoC could end up inside several mid-range handsets later this year and next year. After all, what manufacturer wouldn't want to power a mid-ranger with a chip that could be more powerful than a current flagship chipset and pay a lower price for the component?