October is going to be a busy month for mobile performance nerds, as Apple’s A18 Pro was unveiled in late September, and October is expected to see the unveiling of the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 as well as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, the prime two options for Android flagship manufacturers.
Ahead of the launch of the next flagship MediaTek SoC, we’ve been fortunate enough to get insight into how the chip’s GPU is going to perform thanks to leaked benchmarks. And pretty surprisingly, it seems set to be a relative beast when it comes to its gaming performance.
The Android flagships of late 2024 and most of 2025 will have the opportunity to show their allegiance to MediaTek or Qualcomm when it comes to the SoCs they opt for. MediaTek is hardly an underdog anymore as they’ve started making chips with the capability to seriously keep Qualcomm on its toes. It seems that the Dimensity 9400 will be yet another example of that.
Thanks to Digital Chat Station on Weibo, we now have a good look at the GPU performance that we can expect from the Dimensity 9400, thanks to leaked benchmarks. Compared to its predecessor, this chip will upgrade from the Arm Immortalis-G720 to the Immortalist-G925. In the GFXBench Aztec benchmark, the chip was able to hit a very impressive 134 fps — and that was at 1440p.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the current popular choice for Android flagships, was only able to do 95 fps by comparison. And, for the Apple critics out there, you can enjoy the knowledge that the company’s shiny new A18 Pro chip was only able to hit 72 fps.
Truth be told, anything over 60 is good enough, especially for a 60Hz display. But flagship displays are at 120Hz these days and the Dimensity 9400 should be able to max that out, even at 1440p. That’s impressive. It remains to be seen whether the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be able to match that.
I’ve always been a huge fan of smaller brands being able to make waves in the industries that they find themselves in, and in a space with as few participants as mobile chipmaking, I’m glad to see MediaTek with the potential to create SoCs that flagship OEMs are lining up for.
We’ll be able to get a much better glimpse into the full potential of the Dimensity 9400 when it launches on October 9th, but for now, we’ll make do with these leaks. Plus, if you’re interested in using a phone that will be able to take advantage of this chip’s expected gaming prowess, the Vivo X200 series will be rocking it, and it is expected to launch on October 14th, less than a week later.
