MediaTek gets the jump on Qualcomm, launches Dimensity 9400 processor for 2025 flagship phones

MediaTek has announced its flagship processor for 2025 Android phones, barely two weeks ahead of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit 2024.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 flagship chipset for smartphones is a system-on-chip (SoC) that combines its multi-faceted processing capabilities into one package. According to its official statement, its future users can expect “immersive gaming, incredible photography”, and optimised edge-AI applications, should they use phones equipped with this SoC.

MediaTek Dimensity 9400

The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 repeats its All Big Core design architecture, resulting in one 3.62GHz Arm Cortex-X925, supported by three Cortex-X4 and four Cortex-A720 cores. This octa-core layout, made using TSMC’s 3mn manufacturing process, offers 35% faster single-core performance, 28% faster multi-core performance, and 40% better power efficiency than its predecessor (Dimensity 9300). 

In regular parlance, this means that the new MediaTek flagship processor not only improved raw power output but also achieved even greater power efficiency, the latter of which its SoCs are better known for.

Inside the SoC, MediaTek also included its 8th-generation NPU 890 for generative AI workloads. MediaTek said it is 80% faster at LLM prompt performance and 35% more power efficient than the predecessor.

However, the new addition is the Dimensity Agentic AI Engine, which is designed for agentic AI workloads. This type of AI prioritises autonomy, needs minimal human supervision, can learn from environmental changes, and is also designed for problem-solving (hence, agentic by definition).

According to MediaTek, the company offers a “unified” interface for AI agents, third-party APKs, and LLMs that use cloud and edge AI technologies. This interface should, optimistically, make agentic AI apps mainstream during the Dimensity 9400’s product lifespan.

For gamers, Dimensity 9400 employs a 12-core Arm Immortalis-G925, offering 40% faster ray-tracing performance, support for opacity micromaps, on top of 41% boost to peak performance and up to 44% increase in power savings, when compared to its predecessor. The new chipset also supports HyperEngine, which is MediaTek’s suite of gaming optimisations that cut across latency, graphics, phone resource management, and picture quality.

Photographers can look forward to HDR video recording throughout the entire zoom range, on top of improved power efficiency during photography and videography (up to 14% lower consumption when shooting in 4K60FPS video), because of Dimensity 9400’s on-chip imaging processor, Imagiq 1090.

Other perks of the new flagship chipset includes a 4nm Wi-Fi / Bluetooth combo chip with 7.6Gbps data rate and 50% lower power consumption, support for tri-band Wi-Fi 7, 30m increase in Wi-Fi coverage, and “support for tri-fold smartphones”.

MediaTek said that the first phones to pack its new flagship chipset will start hitting the market from Q4 2024 onwards. Stay tuned to our coverage to see which of your favourite Android phone brands are getting this new toy.

Source: MediaTek (newsroom)

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