The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9200 are the best smartphone chipsets available today, but only one is victorious.
Qualcomm was the undisputed number one when it came to flagship chipsets for years. The company used to compete with Samsung’s Exynos chips, but in recent years, Samsung’s chipset prowess has waned. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is now available in the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, while the Exynos 2200 in the S22 series was a complete disaster. However, MediaTek has now surpassed Qualcomm as the primary competitor, and the chipset war is heating up.
Last year, the Dimensity 9000 outperformed the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and the Dimensity 9000+ competed with the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1. Despite being a generational upgrade, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 outperforms the Dimensity 9000+ in CPU performance, but not by as much as you might expect. Given that the previous generation was still competitive at times, how does the Dimensity 9200 fare against Qualcomm’s latest titan?
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9200: Specifications
Hexagon DSP with Hexagon Vector eXtensions, Hexagon Tensor Accelerator, Hexagon Scalar Accelerator, Hexagon Direct LinkAI EngineQualcomm Sensing HubDual AI processors for audio and sensorsAlways-sensing camera | 6th Gen APU (APU 690)35% faster performance in ETHZ5.0 benchmark over 5th gen | |
| Memory | LPDDR5X @ 4200MHz, 16GB | LPDDR5X @ 4266.5MHz, 16GB |
| ISP | Triple 18-bit Spectra ISPUp to 200MP photo captureSingle camera: Up to 108MP with ZSL @ 30 FPSDual camera: Up to 64+36MP with ZSL @ 30 FPSTriple camera: Up to 36 MP with ZSL @ 30 FPSVideo capture: 8K HDR @ 30 FPS; Slow motion up to 720p@960 FPS; HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, Dolby Vision, HEVC | 18-bit HDR ISP4K HDR video on 3 cameras simultaneouslyNative RGBW sensor supportUp to 12.5% power savings recording 8K with EIS |
| Modem | Snapdragon X70 5G ModemDownlink: 10GbpsUplink: 3.5GbpsModes: G NR, NR-DC, EN-DC, LTE, CBRS, WCDMA, HSPA, TD-SCDMA, CDMA 1x, EV-DO, GSM/EDGEmmWave: 8 carriers, 2×2 MIMOsub-6 GHz: 4×4 MIMO | Sub-6GHz + mmWave readyThroughput: 7.9Gbps4CC Carrier Aggregation8CC mmWaveMediaTek 5G UltraSve 3.0 |
| Charging | Qualcomm Quick Charge 5 | N/A |
| Connectivity | Location: Beidou, Galileo, GLONASS, GPS, QZSS, Dual Frequency GNSS supportWi-Fi: Qualcomm FastConnect 7800; Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 6; 2.4/5GHz/6GHzBands; 20/40/80/160 MHz Channels; DBS (2×2 + 2×2), TWT, WPA3, 8×8 MU-MIMOBluetooth: Version 5.3, aptX Voice, aptX Lossless, aptX Adaptive, and LE audio | Bluetooth 5.3Wi-Fi 7 up to 65 GbpsWireless Stereo Audio |
| Manufacturing Process | 4nm TSMC | 4nm TSMC |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9200: Fundamental differences
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and MediaTek Dimensity 9200 chipsets have very similar reference core designs and overall computational capabilities, but there are some significant differences.
To begin with, Qualcomm has one more performance core than MediaTek Dimension 9200. It has a 1+4+3 core layout, as opposed to the 1+3+4 core layout that has dominated the previous two generations of flagship SoCs. Qualcomm offers Kryo versions of Arm’s reference designs, which include a Cortex-X3 core and two Cortex-A715 cores in addition to two Cortex-A710 cores and three Cortex-A510R1 cores. The Dimensity 9200 from MediaTek has one Cortex-X3 core, three Cortex-A715 cores, and four Cortex-A510R1 cores.
The Immortalis G715 GPU in the Dimensity 9200 is the most significant upgrade here. It has significant improvements over the G710, such as ray tracing support and Vulkan 1.3. It is also more energy efficient than the previous generation and has computational improvements. It’s up against Qualcomm’s Adreno 740 GPU, one of the most powerful mobile GPUs we’ve ever seen, which outperforms even Apple’s own GPU in the A16 Bionic.
Benchmarks overview
- GeekBench: A CPU-centric test that includes encryption, compression (text and images), rendering, physics simulations, computer vision, ray tracing, speech recognition, and convolutional neural network inference on images. Specific metrics are provided in the score breakdown. The final score is weighted based on the designer’s considerations, with integer performance (65%), float performance (30%), and cryptography (5%) receiving the most weight.
- GFXBench: Aims to simulate video game graphics rendering with lots of onscreen effects and high-quality textures using the latest APIs. Vulkan is used in newer tests, while OpenGL ES 3.1 is used in legacy tests. Instead of a weighted score, the outputs are frames during the test and frames per second (the other number divided by the test length).
- CPU Throttling Test: This app runs a simple multithreaded test in C for up to 15 minutes, but we ran it for 30. The app graphs the score over time so you can see when your phone begins to throttle. The score is expressed in GIPS, which stands for billion operations per second.
- Burnout Benchmark: Runs heavy workloads on various SoC components to analyze power consumption, thermal throttling, and maximum performance. It calculates the watts used during testing using Android’s BatteryManager API, which can be used to understand smartphone battery drain.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9000+: Computational workload
We first tested these chipsets’ computational abilities. We used Geekbench 5 and Geekbench 6, making sure that each device was at a normal ambient temperature and that airplane mode was turned on.
Surprisingly, the Dimensity 9200 outperforms the competition in single-core performance but falls short in multi-core. The 8 Gen 2’s multi-core prowess is understandable given its four performance cores versus the Dimensity 9200’s three, but it’s somewhat surprising that the Dimensity 9200 wins in single-core while also having a lower clock speed.
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Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9000+: Power efficiency
Burnout Benchmark allows us to easily measure the power consumed by a smartphone chipset. The app’s developer, Andrey Ignatov, instructed us to run the app on a fully charged device at the lowest brightness and with airplane mode enabled, so all of the data presented here was collected under those conditions. Ignatov told us that the Burnout Benchmark runs the following tests on various SoC components:
- GPU: Parallel vision-based computations using OpenCL
- CPU: Multi-threaded computations largely involving Arm Neon instructions
- NPU: AI models with typical machine learning ops
When pitted against the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Dimensity 9200 is in an interesting position for a couple of reasons. While it uses more power for less peak performance, things change dramatically under lower workloads.
Our graphs show that the peak CPU performance of the Dimensity 9200 is significantly lower than that of the 8 Gen 2. The same can be said for the GPU, which, while close in peak performance, falters over time, and the gap widens significantly, with the Adreno 740 remaining at the top.
| Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (Peak) | MediaTek Dimensity 9200 (Peak) | Percentage | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU FPS | 19.22 | 15.14 | 26.9% better CPU performance in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 |
| GPU FPS | 27.47 | 26.67 | 2.9% better GPU performance in Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 |
| Maximum wattage | 15.85 | 16.5W | 4.1% increase in energy usage in MediaTek Dimensity 9200 |
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Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9200: Graphics
GFXBench is a program that uses a variety of tests to assess the graphical capabilities of a smartphone’s GPU. We ran five different tests here, with the 1440p Aztec tests being the most computationally demanding.
The Dimensity 9200 has a powerful GPU that consistently performs well, but it is outperformed by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 across the board. It’s a lot closer than previous generations, which shows how far the G715 has come.
Even in 3DMark, the Dimensity 9200 scored 3318, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 scored 3600, a 10% improvement. Although it is close, Qualcomm’s GPU comfortably defeats the G715 Immortalis.
