MediaTek’s New Dimensity 9400 Chip Takes on the Best in the Android World

The MediaTek Dimensity 9400 follows the unusual layout adopted by its predecessor without the efficiency (small) Cortex-A5x cores in use for more than 10 years already. For the 2025 season, the Dimensity 9400 brings one Cortex-X925 big CPU (launched earlier this year by ARM), with three Cortex-X4 CPUs from 2023 (from the same generation as the big cores on the Dimensity 9300), and four Cortex-A720.

	MediaTek Dimensity 9400	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3	Samsung Exynos 2400	Google Tensor G4	Apple A18 Pro	MediaTek Dimensity 9300	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2	Google Tensor G3	Apple A17 Pro
Prime core	1x Cortex-X925 @ 3.62 GHz	1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz	1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.2 GHz	1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.1 GHz	2x Apple Everest @ 4.05 GHz	1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.25 GHz	1x Cortex-X3 @ 3.2 GHz	1x Cortex-X3 @ 2.91 GHz	2x Apple Everest @ 3.78 GHz
Performance core	3x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz	3x Cortex A720 @ 3.15 GHz 2x Cortex A720 @ 2.96 GHz	2x Cortex A720 @ 2.9 GHz 3x Cortex A720 @ 2.6 GHz	3x Cortex-A720 @ 2.6 GHz		3x Cortex-X4 @ 2.85 GHz	2x Cortex-A715 @ 2.8 GHz 2x Cortex-A710 @ 2.8 GHz	4x Cortex-A715 @ 2.37 GHz
Efficiency core	4x Cortex-A720 @ ?	2x Cortex-A520 @ 2.3 GHz	4x Cortex-A520 @ 1.95 GHz	4x Cortex-A520 @ 1.92 GHz	4x Apple Sawtooth @ 2.42 GHz	4x Cortex-A720 @ 2.0 GHz	3x Cortex-A510 @ 2 GHz	4x Cortex-A510 @ 1.7 GHz	4x Apple Sawtooth @ 2.11 GHz
RAM	LPDDR5x-10667 4x 16-bit @ 5333 MHz (85.4 GB/s)	LPDDR5x-9600 4x 16-bit @ 4800 MHz (76.8 GB/s)	LPDDR5x-8533 4x 16-bit @ 4266 MHz (68.2 GB/s)	LPDDR5x 4x 16-bit	LPDDR5x-7500 4x 16-bit @ 3750 MHz (60 GB/s)	LPDDR5T-9600 4x 16-bit @ 4800 MHz (76.8 GB/s)	LPDDR5X-8400 4x 16-bit @ 4200 MHz (67.2 GB/s)	LPDDR5x-8533 4x 16-bit @ 4266 MHz (68.2 GB/s)	LPDDR5x-6400 4x 16-bit @ 3200 MHz (51.2 GB/s)
GPU	12x ARM Immortalis-G925	Adreno 750 (2774 GFLOPS)	AMD RDNA3 (3406 GFLOPS)	7x ARM Mali-G715	6x Apple GPU (2227 GFLOPS)	12x ARM Immortalis-G720 (3993.6 GFLOPS)	Adreno 740 (2089 GFLOPS)	7x ARM Mali-G715	6x Apple GPU (2147 GFLOPS)
5G modem	MediaTek (7/3.5 Gbps)	Snapdragon X75 (10/3.6 Gbps)	External Exynos 5153 (12/3.67 Gbps)	External Exynos 5400c	External Snapdragon X71 (10/3.5 Gbps)	MediaTek (7/3.5 Gbps)	Snapdragon X70 (10/3.5 Gbps)	External Exynos 5300i	External Snapdragon X71 (10/3.5 Gbps)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4	Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4	Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3	Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.3	External Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.3	Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.4	Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.3	Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 5.3	External Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3
Process node	TSMC N3E	TSMC N4P	Samsung 4LPP+	Samsung 4LPP+	TSMC N3E	TSMC N4P	TSMC N4	Samsung 4LPP+	TSMC N3B

On the graphics side, the Dimensity 9400 packs 12 cores of the ARM Immortalis-G925 GPU, keeping support for raytracing rendering, and introducing ARM’s take on rendering super-scaling: ARM Accuracy Super Resolution—AASR, to join the tsunami of rival acronyms: DLSS, FSR, XeSS, GSR, PSSR, and the non acronym MetalFX.

MediaTek calls its implementation HyperEngine Super Resolution (HESR, anyone?) but the basics are the same for all of them: Render a gaming scene at a lower resolution internally to expand it to a higher one on-screen, saving on power and performance at the cost of some artifacts. For AASR, ARM based its technique on AMD's FSR2 temporal upscaler, which interpolates pixels based on data gathered from past frames.

The new chip uses TSMC’s second-generation 3-nm-class process node, known as N3E. MediaTek is the second company to publicly announce a consumer-market chip on that node, a few weeks after Apple’s A18 chips launched with the iPhone 16 line.

Apple is clearly TSMC’s preferential partner, but MediaTek is also making the most of its close relationship with the Taiwanese foundry. Eric Fisher, MediaTek’s Corporate Vice President, highlighted this during a press event, noting that the company is also working with other manufacturers like UMC, Global Foundries, and Intel Foundry.

Compared to the previous generation chip—made on TSMC’s N4P process—, MediaTek advertises a 28% sustained CPU performance improvement (35% on single-threaded tasks), or a 40% decrease in power consumption. Similarly, the GPU side promises 41% peak performance or 44% power savings.

	MediaTek Dimensity 9400 (MediaTek's estimates)	Dimensity 9300 (Xiaomi 14T Pro review)	Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (RedMagic 9s review)	Google Tensor G4 (Pixel 9 Pro review)	Apple A18 (iPhone 16 review)
AnTuTu	~2,800,000	~2,000,000	~2,150,000	~950,000	1,701,457
Geekbench	Single: 3055 Multi: 9600	Single: 2243 Multi: 7304	Single: 2239 Multi: 6975	Single: 1934 Multi: 4467	Single: 3099 Multi: 7638

Take those numbers with some skepticism until third-party reviews go live, but at least they seem plausible. For the AnTuTu fans (which Chinese phone brands are the biggest ones, apparently), MediaTek even gave a 3,000,000 score for the Dimensity 9400 under a “laboratory environment” (AKA no thermal constraints).

Speaking of constraints, not to be limited by 2024’s generative AI trend, MediaTek is touting “agentic AI” as the next “turning point” and was quick to remind us that the Dimensity 9400 is compatible with it. In short, agentic AI can be considered a feature that doesn’t require prompts to act, using your data and circumstances to autonomously make decisions and take actions. However, just as we are now seeing practical uses of gen-AI, don’t expect to see agentic AI anytime soon.

Truth be told, long before ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, mobile chip companies were already including AI processing on their chips, but for its 8th-generation AI core, MediaTek is adopting the NPU name instead of the previously used (and confusing) term “APU”.

Back to practical improvements, MediaTek touts an improved Imagiq 1090 image processor (ISP) with improved zoom both in digital magnification and HDR support, with a lower power usage while recording video. The Dimensity 9400 video processing block now supports 8K60 encoding with HEVC at 8-bit depth, and video decoding offers the same codec support as the 9300 predecessor: AVC (h.264), HEVC (h.265), VP9, and AV1.

The Dimensity 9400 is compatible with the latest Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7 standards, just like its predecessor. MediaTek, however, noted that the combo chip uses a more efficient process node, promising 50% lower power consumption, improved range, and even a 25% efficiency improvement in demanding Wi-Fi hotspot use.

The Dimensity modem now supports the 3GPP Rel-17 standard on the cellular side. While downlink speeds remain capped at 7 Gbps using only sub-6GHz bands, as with the previous generation, MediaTek promises improved network utilization and reduced power consumption in real-world scenarios.

Availability

According to MediaTek, the first smartphones powered by the Dimensity 9400 will be available “starting in Q4 2024”. So be ready for upcoming announcements from the usual brands such as Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

With MediaTek’s leading market share in the Android market and the significant design win on the Galaxy Tab S10 series, the company is forecasting a 50% growth in the flagship SoC market for 2024 in comparison to 2023.

The pressure is now on Qualcomm’s side on how it will deal with the Taiwanese challenge on the flagship market. With the Snapdragon summit scheduled for later this month, it won’t be long before we have that answer.