The Dimensity 9600 Pro is the flagship chipset Google wishes the Tensor G6 was

MediaTek is the world’s most popular smartphone chipmaker, largely due to its presence in the mid-range and low-end segments. However, the firm’s Dimensity 9000 chips have consistently delivered high-end horsepower and features to match and sometimes beat Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 series chips. Now, MediaTek has announced the Dimensity 9600 Pro, which is expected to take on Qualcomm’s upcoming chipset.

The Dimensity 9600 Pro is the firm’s first 2nm smartphone chip, manufactured in partnership with TSMC. This is the third major 2nm mobile chipset, following the Samsung Exynos 2600 early this year and the recently announced Apple A20 Pro.

This new chipset offers an octa-core CPU, consisting of two 4.55GHz C2-Ultra cores, three 4.35GHz C2-Pro cores (1MB L2 cache), and three 3.1GHz C2-Pro cores (512KB L2 cache). The Dimensity chip apparently has a 21% larger L2 cache, although you’ve still got 16MB L3 cache and 10MB of system-level cache.

MediaTek says you can expect 17% faster single-core CPU performance and 15% faster multi-core performance. We’re guessing most of these gains are due to the higher clock speed and 2nm process. For what it’s worth, Qualcomm has confirmed that its upcoming Snapdragon silicon will indeed offer a 5GHz CPU and its so-called Oryon FlexCache architecture. So we’re keen to see whether the latest Arm CPU cores are nimble enough to keep up with Qualcomm’s new CPU cores.

Dimensity 9600 Pro GPU and AI features

MediaTek has used Arm GPUs in its high-end chips for years now, and the Dimensity 9600 Pro continues this tradition. The new chip comes with the Arm Mali-G2 Ultra NX GPU, which is broadly in line with Xiaomi’s XRing 03 processor. There’s no official word on the number of shader cores used in the Dimensity GPU. For comparison’s sake, Xiaomi says it’s using a 16-core GPU. But MediaTek promises 27% faster peak performance than last year’s chip, 24% greater efficiency at peak performance, and 18% better ray tracing performance.

There’s more to the GPU, though. The company says it uses a “direct GPU-NPU sync” to deliver “PC-level” neural graphics rendering with improved super-resolution. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Qualcomm’s next flagship chip is also embracing AI-based graphics rendering with Adreno Neural Fusion tech. So it sounds like next-gen flagship phones could heavily rely on AI-based super-resolution to improve gaming visuals. Otherwise, you can also expect support for native 185fps and higher gameplay. This comes as devices like the POCO F9 Ultra and REDMAGIC Astra 2 deliver 185Hz screens with Snapdragon power.

The Dimensity 9600 Pro also brings a ton of AI improvements. For one, there’s a dual-NPU architecture featuring the MediaTek NPU 1090 and the Super Efficient NPU 2.0. The latter core follows in the footsteps of the Dimensity 9500‘s first-generation super-efficient NPU, but MediaTek says this new part is designed for always-on background AI activity, such as agents.

Other notable AI-related improvements include double the INT4 processing of the Dimensity 9500, 40% faster token generation, 27% faster on-device AI model launch speed, 55% more token generation per watt, 51% faster LLM prefill performance, a new hardware compression engine, support for AI models with up to 30 billion parameters (there’s no word on the token speed), and support for Mixture-of-Experts AI models. All of this bodes well for Gemini Intelligence and its associated features.

What else to know about the Dimensity 9600 Pro?

MediaTek flagship chips have also delivered notable camera gains over the years, and the Dimensity 9600 Pro is no different. Perhaps the most notable addition is 4K/240fps slow-motion video capture. That’s double the frame rate of other flagship processors, which top out at 4K/120fps. The product page mentions 8K/60fps support too, but later mentions 8K/60fps playback only. So we’re not sure what to believe here.

The new Dimensity processor also supports LOFIC and UFCC (ultra-full-color capture) cameras, HDR video capture with up to 17 stops of dynamic range, 60fps subject tracking, “unlimited” 4K HDR capture, and 4K/60fps HDR video with semantic processing.

As for connectivity, the Dimensity 9600 Pro supports Bluetooth 6.2, Wi-Fi 7, a 5G Advanced modem topping out at over 7.4Gbps, and 5G/4G Triple-SIM Triple Active (and you thought dual-SIM Dual Active was cool?). Furthermore, MediaTek says its AI connectivity framework delivers a 90% reduction in Wi-Fi roaming, zero-lag for live-streaming games, and 30% more accurate positioning.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro is also the first mobile chipset to support VVC (H.266) hardware decoding. That means you can expect improved streaming video quality for the same bandwidth as HEVC, or the same picture quality for less bandwidth. Other noteworthy chipset features include MV-HEVC support for spatial video, reduced motion blur on screens, Panel Power Saving Technology and Video Hybrid Mode for a more efficient display, UFS 5.0 and LPDDR6 support, and

There’s no word on the first devices with the Dimensity 9600 Pro, but we expect the vivo X500 series (launching in China next week) to be the first phones with the new processor. In fact, the company has already confirmed that these phones will support 4K/240fps video recording. Either way, this chip looks like a real rival to the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 series and absolutely demolishes the Google Tensor G6 on paper.