While many might argue that smartphone processing power these days has mostly reached a plateau, that doesn’t necessarily mean that manufacturers have slowed down on working on new and upcoming hardware. In line with that, MediaTek recently unveiled the Dimensity 9500, a new high-end smartphone chip that makes its debut just days before rival Qualcomm’s own Snapdragon launch event.
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MediaTek says that it’s designed the Dimensity 9500 with an All Big Core CPU design with a 4.21GHz “ultra core” alongside three premium cores and four performance cores. On paper, this configuration along with four-lane UFS 4.1 storage is capable of delivering up to 32% higher single-core and 17% higher multi-core performance compared to its predecessor. The ultra core alone is up to 55% more power efficient as well.
With support for four-channel UFS 4.1, the chip’s new cache and memory architecture can double read/write speeds and boosts large AI model loading by 40%. There’s also a second-generation Dimensity Scheduling Engine that promises smooth and sustained performance, even under heavy use. For gaming scenarios, the Dimensity 9500 uses an Arm G1-Ultra GPU which offers up to 33% higher peak performance and 42% improved power efficiency, and there’s also support for features like raytracing (at up to 120 FPS), allowing for console-level graphics on a mobile device.
As with a lot of modern smartphone processors nowadays, the 9500 comes with support for AI features. The chip comes with a ninth-generation MediaTek NPU 990 with Generative AI Engine 2.0 for twice the compute power, and also enables support for BitNet 1.58-bit large model processing. MediaTek says that this enables a 100% faster output for 3-billion-parameter LLMs, including the industry’s first 4K ultra-high-definition image generation. The 9500 is also the first chip to feature an integrated compute-in-memory architecture in its Super Efficient NPU for reduced power consumption.
For photography, the 9500 comes with MediaTek’s Imagiq 1190 image signal processor which supports RAW-domain pre-processing, up to 200MP capture, continuous 30fps focus tracking, and even cinematic 4K 60FPS portrait video. Also present is MiraVision Adaptive Display technology, which can adjust screen settings in different lighting conditions while protecting the user’s eyes.
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As for when we can expect the new chip to arrive, MediaTek says that the Dimensity 9500 will appear in a number of flagship Android phones later in 2025.
