MediaTek has revealed an addition to its line of premium 5G chipsets designed to help the company compete on level footing at the upper end of the smartphone market.
The new Dimensity 9000+ SoC slots in at the top of the MediaTek portfolio, bundling eight CPU cores based on Arm’s v9 architecture with an Arm Mali-G710 GPU.
As with the previous model, the chipset also boasts 8MB L3 cache, 6MB system cache, a high-performance modem, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 support and an integrated APU for AI acceleration.
Although the specs are largely identical to the base Dimensity 9000, the new SoC is said to offer a material performance boost across graphical and traditional workloads, thanks to the ability to run cores at higher clock speeds.
MediaTek targets Qualcomm’s crown
Historically, MediaTek has played in the somewhat less sexy portions of the mobile chipset market, featuring inside budget and mid-range phones aimed at users for whom performance isn’t necessarily the priority.
The launch of the Dimensity 9000 in December last year signalled a shift in strategy, which will see MediaTek attempt for the first time to muscle its way into flashship mobile devices, a field traditionally dominated by Qualcomm.
At MWC 2022, TechRadar Pro spoke to Pascal Lemasson and Rob Moffat, executives in charge of sales at MediaTek, who provided additional context around the company’s new approach and the significance of its new Dimensity chips.
“The strategy is to offer our customers chipsets from bottom to top. Before the Dimensity 9000, we had a gap at the top end,” said Moffat. “In the last three years, our R&D investment has been massive and 5G is a huge opportunity for us, so we’ve taken a decision to target the high-end market.”
“Ultimately, we need to be focused on technology leadership, which takes you automatically into top-tier products.”
The arrival of the Dimensity 9000+, meanwhile, adds another string to the MediaTek bow, perhaps giving OEMs a difficult choice to make when selecting a configuration for their upcoming flagships.
“Building on the success of our first flagship 5G chipset, the Dimensity 9000+ ensures that device makers always have access to the most advanced high-performance features and the latest mobile technologies, making it possible for their top-tier smartphones to stand out,” said Dr. Yenchi Lee, Deputy GM of Wireless Communications at MediaTek.
“With a suite of top-tier AI, gaming, multimedia, imaging and connectivity features, the Dimensity 9000+ delivers faster gameplay, seamless streaming and an all-around better user experience.”
Smartphones based on the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ are set to go to market in the third quarter.
