Officially introducing its Dimensity 9400 chipset, MediaTek has had an overall CPU structure quite in line with previously released data. One Arm Cortex-X925 core with a peak frequency of 3.62GHz, three Cortex-X4 cores reaching up to 3.3GHz, and four Cortex-A720 cores with a maximum frequency of 2.4GHz equip the 9400.

MediaTek’s figures look to be trailing when compared to Qualcomm’s chip’s 4GHz CPU frequency. MediaTek has responded that since clock speed is not the only factor influencing actual performance, it is unknown why its rivals are driving clock speeds to such high degrees. The company is sure that its design can provide an outstanding product with improved power balancing as well.

The CPU design features of the Dimensity 9400 caused uncertainty in the market earlier. This was so because the 9400 replaces one Cortex-G4 core for the newest Cortex-X925 core, unlike the Dimensity 9300 design. Thus, at most the older cores’ clock speed limit has been somewhat raised.

Still, the single-core performance of the Dimensity 9400 has improved by 35% and the multi-core performance by 28% when compared to the Dimensity 9300 issued in 2023. Forty percent less total power use than in the preceding generation. Apart from using the second-generation 3nm technology of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), MediaTek has also polished its designs.

MediaTek noted that this time the CPU design makes use of the most recent Armv9.2 architecture extension. By means of this update, the CPU can efficiently reach the same strong performance at a somewhat low frequency with increasing running efficiency.

Conversely, improvements in other micro designs, such cache memory, also help the Dimensity 9400 to better control resources. While other, less demanding chores can be performed by the other cores, the ultra-large Cortex-X925 core can run at full power when high-performance needs develop. MediaTek is rather sure about the Dimensity 9400’s balance in this sense.

MediaTek is preoccupied with equilibrium.
MediaTek noted during a media Q&A session that a comparison between the two is premature given Qualcomm has not yet unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and is employing in-house built Oryon CPU architecture. Nonetheless, MediaTek has embraced the Armv9 instruction set whereas Qualcomm is still running Armv8.

MediaTek sees Armv9 as more balanced in terms of power consumption management and stays conservative about power consumption and operating efficiency even if it observes rivals drive processor clock speeds to the boundaries. MediaTek underlined that, for them, achieving extreme performance is less crucial than balancing the power consumption and performance of several processes and services through architectural design.

MediaTek already positioned itself competitively with Qualcomm in 2023 with the All Big Core Design of the Dimensity 9300, so demonstrating that it can compete head-on with Qualcomm on flagship mobile SoC design. MediaTek claims it will not be at a disadvantage while vying with Qualcomm’s self-developed Oryon CPU since its success in 2023 makes it quite confident in the balancing method it has chosen in 2024.

Still, on the PC platform Qualcomm’s Oryon CPU has shown promise previously. Key areas of interest in the next rivalry between two main Android flagship smartphones will be if the same capabilities can be recreated on the mobile platform or how using excessive clock speeds will affect the user experience.