Keen to get out ahead of Qualcomm’s rumoured Snapdragon-themed announcement, MediaTek has revealed its own flagship mobile chipset that it hopes will power flagship devices in 2026.
With Oppo already confirming that its upcoming Find X9 series will utilise the new Dimensity 9500 chipset, we thought it’d be a great time to delve into the specifics of the new SoC to see how it really differs from last year’s excellent Dimensity 9400.
Spoiler alert: it offers a pretty significant upgrade in some key areas.
Of course, it should go without saying that the newer MediaTek Dimensity 9500 is faster and more efficient than the outgoing Dimensity 9400 – but there’s more to it than that.
Continuing with its ‘All Big Core’ CPU design, now in its third generation, the chipset is comprised of a large 4.21GHz CPU, along with three ‘premium’ cores and four ‘performance’ cores.
Combined, MediaTek claims that the new CPU offers a 32% boost in single-core performance, while multi-core performance sees a more modest 17% increase. The Ultra Core is also significantly more efficient than before, with 55% lower power consumption when running at maximum performance, which should translate to improved performance without the associated impact on battery life.
It’s a similar story in the GPU department, with the ARM G1-Ultra GPU providing a 44% boost to peak performance while being 42% more efficient than the Dimensity 9400’s ARM Immortalis G925.
It also introduces gaming-focused features like high frame rate interpolation that allows for ray-traced titles to hit a smooth 120fps, and is working with the likes of Unreal to improve elements like lighting on Dimensity-powered phones.
MediaTek hasn’t shied away from the AI-powered revolution hitting our smartphones at the moment, with last year’s Dimensity 9400 already sporting a pretty powerful NPU that powered on-device agentic AI tasks as well as image generation and more.
The 9500 aims to improve upon that experience with an upgraded MediaTek-branded NPU 990, featuring what it calls the Generative AI Engine 2.0. According to the chip maker, this should not only double the compute power (essentially what powers AI experiences) but also enable support for 1.58-bit large model processing, all while reducing overall power consumption by 33%.
The company also claims that the NPU speeds up outputs of 3-billion-parameter LLMs and 128k long text processing by a massive 100%. It also introduces 4K image generation, the first in the mobile chip industry to do so.
The Dimensity 9500 can handle high-end camera tech
The Dimensity 9500 features a boosted ISP dubbed the Imagiq 1190, which brings support for new high-end camera tech.
This includes RAW domain pre-processing, support for 200MP capture, 30fps continuous focus tracking for pixel-sharp videos and photos, as well as a new portrait engine that supports 4K@60fps video with that signature portrait bokeh.
Considering the Dimensity 9500 is framed as a flagship-level chipset, support for elements like 200MP capture is long overdue – especially compared to the Snapdragon-branded competition. Still, it’s great to see here, and it means that Dimensity-powered smartphones should be able to take clearer photos and smoother videos than before.
Last, but by no means least, this year’s chipset offers boosted connectivity across the board. It includes Bluetooth call enhancement that boosts the quality of calls taken with wireless earbuds, along with faster Wi-Fi data transfers and multi-network support for calls and data.
What’s more, it’s using AI to reduce the power consumption of 5G connectivity by 10%, while it’ll be 20% more efficient when connected to Wi-Fi.
Early thoughts
The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 appears to be an all-round upgrade over last year’s flagship Dimensity 9400 chipset, featuring not only a faster and more efficient CPU and GPU, but also significantly enhanced NPU processing power, support for advanced smartphone camera technology, and improved connectivity across Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular networking.
It’s not like you’ll be able to upgrade your Dimensity 9400-equipped device, but it’s safe to say that Dimensity 9500 devices should offer a solid upgrade in the performance and efficiency departments. The real question is around how it’ll compete with Qualcomm’s yet-to-be-announced flagship alternative.
