MediaTek has just announced its new flagship processor, the Dimensity 9500. This is a direct successor to the Dimensity 9400 chip, and it also kind of succeeds the Dimensity 9400+. That chip is expected to get a more direct successor at some point next year.
The company says that the Dimensity 9500 is here to set “new standards in on-device AI, console-class gaming, and power efficiency,” and that the chip is “engineered to super-charge the next wave of flagship 5G smartphones.”
The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 adopts third-gen All Big Core CPU design with massive performance gains
This processor adopts a third-generation All Big Core CPU design from MediaTek. Last year’s Dimensity 9400 was a home run for the company, as it offered outstanding performance with good power efficiency. It managed to compete directly with the Snapdragon 8 Elite without a problem, they stood side-by-side.
The Dimensity 9500 has a 4.21GHz ultra core, combined with three premium cores and four performance cores. MediaTek claims that this setup delivers up to 29% higher single-core and 16% higher multi-core performance compared to the previous-gen chip. The ultraw core, on the other hand, delivers up to 55% lower power consumption at peak performance, which is a major improvement.
“As AI becomes part of everyday life, consumers want devices that feel smarter, faster, and more personal without sacrificing battery life,” said JC Hsu, corporate senior VP at MediaTek and general manager of the Wireless Communications Business Unit. He also added that the MediaTek Dimensity 9500 “delivers exactly that: Breakthrough on-device AI, top-tier performance and efficiency, and a full suite of premium experiences that our partners can bring to users around the world.”
Four-lane UFS 4.1 storage is supported, which doubles read/write speeds
This chip also comes with support for four-lane UFS 4.1 storage. That, along with the platform’s new cache and memory architectures, doubles read/write speeds and accelerates large AI model loading by 40%.
The Arm G1-Ultra GPU is used here, and it helps the Dimensity 9500 provide up to 33% higher peak performance and 42% improved power efficiency. This chip also introduces double frame rate interpolation up to 120FPS. MediaTek claims that this will deliver console-level ray tracing to gamers.
MediaTek also partnered up with some leading gaming studios, and it provides support for MegaLights in Unreal Engine 5.6 and Nanite in Unreal Engine 5.5. All that to enable “AAA-level real-time rendering and immersive lighting effects.”
This chip also integrates the ninth-generation MediaTek NPU 990 with Generative AI Engine 2.0. That doubles compute power and introduces BitNet 1-bit large model processing, reducing power consumption by up to 25%.
Power consumption is up to 40% lower
The “ultra-efficient NPU enables always-on small models, slashing power consumption by more than 40%.” MediaTek also added that users will benefit from 100% faster 3 billion parameter LLM output, 128K token long text processing, and the industry’s first 4K ultra-high-resolution image generation.
The MediaTek Imagiq 1190 is also included, and it enables the Dimensity 9500 to support RAW-domain pre-processing, up to 200MP capture, and NPU-assisted focusing. All that while enabling cinematic 4K 60FPS portrait video.
What about the chip’s connectivity suite? Well, it includes MiraVision adaptive display, AI-driven Bluetooth call enhancement, Wi-Fi fast transfer, and multi-network intelligence for “seamless calls and data”. MediaTek says that AI-powered communication technologies deliver up to 10% lower power in 5G and 20% lower power in Wi-Fi scenarios. 5CC carrier aggregation boosts bandwidth by 15%.