Dimensity 9300 shows better efficiency than Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

Yesterday, MediaTek launched the Dimensity 9300 to take on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. On paper, the two chips look incredibly powerful and efficient. Both solutions are built on TSMC’s 4nm fabrication process and feature the latest ARM CPU technology. However, the former has no efficiency cores while the latter has a couple. Despite that, the new Dimensity processor appears to have a superior power efficiency than the Snapdragon.

Dimensity 9300 is more efficient than Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

The Dimensity 9300 features one ARM Cortex-X4 prime CPU core clocked at 3.25GHz, three more Cortex-X4 cores at 2.85GHz, and four Cortex-A720 mid cores at 2.0GHz. On the other hand, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has one Cortex-X4 core clocked at 3.30GHz, three Cortex-A720 cores at 3.15GHz, two more Cortex-A720 cores at 2.96GHz, and two Cortex-A520 efficiency cores at 2.26GHz.

In a benchmark test, the MediaTek chip delivered better power efficiency than Qualcomm’s. It reached the same performance level with almost 33 percent less power. At constant power, the performance was up by about ten percent. Both CPU and GPU tests showed a similar trend, with the Dimensity 9300 offering better efficiency than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The former’s power consumption at peak performance is substantially less than the latter.

Performance-wise, MediaTek’s latest flagship SoC appears to be giving a tough fight to Apple’s A17 Pro, which powers the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. As expected, its multi-core performance is unmatched by rivals. That’s the benefit of the so-called “All Big Core” design. However, with no efficiency cores, its idle power consumption appears to be significantly high.

The Dimensity 9300 may also be overkill for less taxing tasks, leading to an abnormal power drain. These benchmark tests were likely conducted in a controlled environment using pre-production devices. There’s no telling if the test setup had thermal limits in place. If not, the chip could flex its muscles and perform at its peak capacity with no restrictions. The real-life performance may not be the same as we saw in these results.

There are concerns about heating issues

Months before MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9300, there were reports that the chip gets abnormally hot when running at full capacity. It’s unclear if the company has worked on this. It may be able to keep the temperature in check by throttling the performance. However, that means the chip won’t deliver the same performance it’s expected to deliver. Time will tell whether MediaTek’s “All Big Core” design is a game changer or if the decision backfires. The Dimensity 9300 will start shipping inside Android flagships later this month.