Dimensity 9600 could outperform both Apple’s and Qualcomm’s processors
MediaTek’s upcoming flagship processor will be manufactured on a 2nm process node, according to Weibo tipster Digital Chat Station. The leaker doesn’t clarify whether the chip will be fabricated on TSMC’s N2P or Samsung’s SF2 process, but they claim it’ll offer excellent performance.Utilizing a 2+3+3 all-big core CPU architecture, the Dimensity 9600 will aim to offer industry-leading single-core performance that should rival Apple’s flagship A-series chips. On top of that, the chip is said to offer even better multi-core performance than that of Apple’s chips.
The missing detail about those claims is whether the comparison is with the A19 Pro inside the iPhone 17 Pro or the upcoming A20-series processor of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. The leaker also hasn’t mentioned the clock speeds of the new chip.
Focus on the GPU
The ChatGPT phone may feature a Dimensity 9600 chip. | Image by PhoneArena
Alongside the mentioned improvements to the Compute Matrix Engine (CME) and Scalable Matrix Extension (SME) capabilities, MediaTek may also have a focus on the GPU. The new chip is said to offer advantages in comparison to competing 2nm chips.Those may include native frame interpolation and resolution upscaling as well as improved ray-tracing performance. The leaker also mentions higher rendering efficiency, which could lead to lower power consumption under heavy load.
Coming later this year
Unsurprisingly, the first devices with the Dimensity 9600 chip are expected to arrive in September. That’s around the same time the first Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 phones should start appearing and the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra are expected to launch.MediaTek is also rumored to provide the chip for the first OpenAI smartphone. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the Dimensity 9600 will be a dual-NPU chipset, with its ISP (image signal processor) said to be a headline spec.
Competition is necessary
Qualcomm has been the undisputed leader in the mobile chipset space for a very long time. MediaTek was mostly focused on lower-tier silicon, while Apple, Samsung, and Google generally don’t offer their chips to other companies.
Seeing a truly capable competitor to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 could make flagship smartphones a bit more interesting and even a little more affordable. After all, competition often feels like a magic ingredient that pushes companies to improve their offers. I hope that’s not wishful thinking, though.
