Dimensity 820 announced: A rival to Kirin 820, Snapdragon 768G?

MediaTek launched the Dimensity 1000 Plus chipset earlier this month, being a mildly upgraded version of its Dimensity 1000 flagship 5G processor. Now, the company has done the same for the Dimensity 800, as it launches the Dimensity 820.

The newly announced 7nm chipset is however a bigger upgrade over the Dimensity 800 than the Dimensity 1000 Plus is over the Dimensity 1000. Starting with the CPU, we still see the same octacore layout here (4x Cortex-A76 and 4x Cortex-A55), but the heavyweight cores have been upgraded from 2Ghz to 2.6Ghz. In fact, the Taiwanese firm is claiming up to 37% better multi-core performance than “others.” This wouldn’t be a surprise, as rival chipsets in the upper mid-range tier tend to only offer two heavyweight cores.

MediaTek’s new chip also sees a graphical upgrade, going from a four-core Mali-G57 GPU to five cores. The chipmaker says you should expect 33% better gaming performance than “direct alternatives.” Presumably the references to “alternatives” and “others” are comparisons to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 700 series. But we’ve asked the company to confirm these statements.

The chip designer is also bringing a couple of 5G-related features to the table, such as 5G+5G dual SIM (seen on its flagship silicon), 2CC carrier aggregation, and 5G UltraSave tech for more efficient connectivity.

In terms of photo and video, you can expect 32MP+16MP dual cameras, 80MP single cameras, up to four concurrent cameras, and multi-frame 4K HDR recording.

Other noteworthy details include the firm’s APU 3.0 machine learning tech, 120Hz support (much like the Dimensity 800),  and sub-6Ghz 5G.

As for the first Dimensity 820 phones, Xiaomi has confirmed that its Redmi 10X series will be equipped with the processor. Xiaomi says the device will be unveiled on May 26.