Snapdragon 8 Elite and MediaTek 9400 compared in tests – there is no clear winner

The flagship chipsets Snapdragon 8 Elite from Qualcomm and Dimensity 9400 from MediaTek will appear in most devices only in 2025, but some manufacturers have already presented their smartphones with new processors. Researchers from gsmarena.com compared the performance of the new chipsets using the example of Realme GT7 Pro with Snapdragon 8 Elite and vivo X200 Pro with Dimensity 9400.

Image source: GSMArena.com

Historically, Qualcomm chips have been superior to MediaTek’s products, but recently the Taiwanese company has begun to close the gap. The latest version of Dimensity offers an octa-core processor with the following core formula: 1 × 3.63 GHz Cortex-X925, 3 × 3.3 GHz Cortex-X4 and 4 × 2.4 GHz Cortex-A720 and uses the Immortalis-G925 GPU.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite, on the other hand, boasts of its own Oryon cores – 2 × 4.20 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix L + 6 × 3.53 GHz Oryon V2 Phoenix M. This set of cores is significantly different from the Dimensity 9400, and the cores are also Oryon operate at a higher frequency. The Adreno 830 GPU also promises a significant jump in performance over the previous generation.

As expected, the Snapdragon 8 Elite delivers better performance in both single-core and multi-core workloads. In Geekbench 6, the Snapdragon 8 Elite beats the Dimensity 9400 by 10% in the multi-core scenario and 15% in the single-threaded scenario.

However, in combined workloads such as AnTuTu 10, the Dimensity 9400 outperforms the Qualcomm chip by 6%. The researchers note that, for all practical purposes, such differences in performance are not very significant.

In 3DMark’s GPU-intensive tests, the Dimensity 9400 outperforms the Snapdragon 8 Elite by 7-8% depending on the test, meaning the Immortalis-G925 GPU outperforms the Adreno 830, albeit by a small margin.

Experts consider the test results a victory for Mediatek. They believe that “users can now be confident that if they choose a Dimensity 9400-powered smartphone, they won’t be sacrificing pure performance.” With its latest chipset, Mediatek has come close to the leader.

The researchers caution that the published results are from tests of pre-sale devices, so there may be some changes as more phones with these chipsets become available. However, they don’t expect dramatic differences.