MediaTek has announced the launch date for the Dimensity 9300. The Taiwanese firm’s next-gen flagship smartphone chipset will go official on November 6, 2023. The launch event will take place in China at 19:00 local time.

Dimensity 9300 is coming to challenge the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

The Dimensity 9300 is MediaTek’s answer to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which launches later today. These two chips will compete to power flagship Android smartphones for the next year. Like in previous years, we are expecting a close battle. Early benchmark runs have suggested the same.

However, that doesn’t mean the two chipsets have similar specs or CPU configurations. The new Dimensity chip comes with a rather unusual CPU core setup. An illustration published by MediaTek as part of its date announcement confirms rumors that the Dimensity 9300 doesn’t have “efficiency” cores. It only features prime cores and mid-cores.

Based on leaks, we are expecting one ARM Cortex-X4 prime core operating at a maximum frequency of 3.25GHz and three more Cortex-X4 cores at 2.85GHz. The four Cortex-A720 cores are reportedly clocked at 2.0GHz. MediaTek has paired the CPU with ARM’s Immortalis G720 MC12 GPU. There aren’t any Cortex-A520 efficiency cores here.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, on the other hand, has only one Cortex-X4 prime CPU core. Leaks suggest it’s clocked at 3.3GHz. Qualcomm is also offering five Cortex-A720 mid-cores clocked at 3.2GHz and two Cortex-A520 efficiency cores operating at a frequency of 2.3GHz. Samsung‘s Exynos 2400 also has one prime core and five mid-cores. However, it’s a deca-core (ten CPU cores) chipset, so we are getting four efficiency cores as well.

The new MediaTek chip has set an AnTuTu benchmark record

Theoretically, the Dimensity 9300 should decimate the competition. Its AnTuTu benchmark run certainly hints at a groundbreaking performance. The chip has set a new record by becoming the first-ever mobile SoC to score more than two million points on the benchmarking platform.

However, the lack of efficiency cores is a major limitation. With four Cortex-X4 CPU cores under its hood, the chip could overheat easily. MediaTek may rely heavily on performance throttling to keep it cool. So in real-world scenarios, it might perform similarly to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or the Exynos 2400.

The new Qualcomm chip is expected to debut inside the Xiaomi 14 series later this month. The Dimensity 9300 may ship inside the Vivo X100, which launches in China on November 17. Finally, the Exynos 2400 will power Samsung’s Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ early next year. Time will tell which of the three comes out as the best performer.