Just weeks after introducing a very promising flagship chip for Android phones that rivals Qualcomm’s best, MediaTek is taking the competition down a notch. The latest from the Taiwanese company is the Dimensity 8300, which goes directly against the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3.
Overall, it seems like this is one of the best mid-tier processors offered by MediaTek in a long time, both in terms of inherent capabilities and generation-to-generation upgrades. The first wave of phones powered by the Dimensity 8300 will arrive later this year.
Notably, compared to Qualcomm’s frankly lazy mid-tier upgrade to the Snapdragon 7 series, MediaTek’s new chip brings meaningful improvements across the board. Based on the same 4nm process as its predecessor, the Dimensity 8300 employs new ARM V9-based Cortex cores.
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We’re looking at an improved 4+4 cluster of Cortex A715 cores and the same number of Cortex A510 cores. MediaTek is claiming a 20% increase in processing firepower and a healthy 30% increase in energy efficiency.
For games and other demanding tasks, MediaTek has opted for the new Mali-G615 GPU which offers a massive 60% increase in raw graphics prowess while being 50% more economical in power consumption.
Due to this, Qualcomm seems to be lagging behind.
Of course, it’s the season of AI everywhere, and MediaTek is not shying away from it. The Dimensity 8300 is one of the first midrange processors that can run next generation AI models with up to 10 billion parameters.
This figure matches the capacity of the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, while MediaTek’s own Dimensity 9300 boosts the bar to 13 billion parameters (with room to grow further).
Those AI capabilities come courtesy of the new APU 780 AI processor that can also handle stable diffusion workflows like text-to-image generation. Based on benchmark tests, it is 3.3 times more powerful and can handle generative AI tasks up to eight times faster.
RAM module support has been upgraded from the 6400 MHz type to the higher frequency 8300 MHz channel, offering a 33% improvement. In real-life smartphone use, you can expect faster multitasking and the ability to maintain more active instances in the background.
The storage standard has also increased from UFS 3.1 to UFS 4.0 speeds, which promises double the read and write speeds compared to the Dimensity 8200. MediaTek’s latest also promises improvements in cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity, with higher download speeds. 5.17Gbps on 5G and 2x bandwidth gain respectively.
In the imaging department, the Dimensity 8300 will finally allow MediaTek-powered Android phones to record 4K HDR video at 60 frames per second (fps), up from the 30 fps frame limit imposed by its predecessor. It will be interesting to see how this well-developed chip stacks up against its Qualcomm rivals, but so far, MediaTek looks to be on a roll this year.