MediaTek Dimensity 9500 3nm SoC Announced with Breakthrough AI, 32% Faster Performance

MediaTek has officially unveiled the Dimensity 9500, its latest flagship mobile platform and successor to the Dimensity 9400/9400+. Built on TSMC’s third-generation 3nm process and featuring a new all-large core CPU architecture, the Dimensity 9500 is designed to deliver higher performance, improved efficiency, and next-gen AI capabilities for premium smartphones launching later this year.

At its core, the chipset introduces an all-new C1-Ultra core clocked at 4.21GHz, three C1-Premium cores at 3.5GHz, and four C1-Pro cores. MediaTek claims up to 32% higher single-core performance, 17% multi-core gains, and up to 55% lower power consumption at peak performance compared to its predecessor. With four-lane UFS 4.1 storage support, the platform doubles read/write speeds and boosts AI model loading speeds by 40%.
On the graphics side, the Arm G1-Ultra GPU delivers up to 33% higher peak performance and 42% better efficiency, with hardware support for 120FPS ray tracing. Collaborations with game studios bring advanced rendering features, including MegaLights in Unreal Engine 5.6 and Nanite in Unreal Engine 5.5, enabling near-console-level visual experiences on mobile.
The MediaTek NPU 990, powered by Generative AI Engine 2.0, doubles compute power and introduces support for BitNet 1.58-bit large model processing. This enables 100% faster large language model output with up to 128K token processing, industry-first 4K AI image generation, and up to 56% lower power consumption. Integrated compute-in-memory architecture allows AI models to run continuously, enhancing real-time proactive AI features on devices.
For imaging, the Imagiq 1190 ISP supports up to 320MP camera sensors, RAW-domain pre-processing, 200MP still capture, and cinematic 4K 60FPS portrait video. It also introduces Android’s first 4K120 Dolby Vision video recording with EIS. Combined with MiraVision Adaptive Display, the platform ensures enhanced visual clarity in both bright outdoor and low-light indoor scenarios while minimizing power draw.
Connectivity features include Wi-Fi 7 with Triple Band Triple Concurrency, Bluetooth 6.0, and advanced AI-driven multi-network management that improves accuracy and reduces latency by up to 50%. With 5CC carrier aggregation, the platform also promises 15% higher 5G bandwidth and 20% lower power consumption in Wi-Fi scenarios.
The vivo X300 series, launching in China on October 13th with the company’s V3+ imaging chip, will be the first to feature the Dimensity 9500. Shortly after, the OPPO Find X9 series, set to debut on October 16th, will also adopt the new flagship SoC. According to JC Hsu, SVP at MediaTek, the Dimensity 9500 is designed to offer “breakthrough on-device AI, top-tier performance and efficiency, and a full suite of premium experiences.”