MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro Brings Exciting 2nm Power to Phones

MediaTek has introduced its new Dimensity 9600 Pro mobile processor, bringing the company into the 2nm smartphone chip era. The new flagship SoC is built for high-end phones and puts a strong focus on performance, battery life, gaming, and on-device AI.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro also arrives with support for newer technologies such as LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 storage. Oppo and Vivo are already preparing phones powered by the new chip.

MediaTek moves to a 2nm smartphone chip

The biggest change with the Dimensity 9600 Pro is its 2nm manufacturing process. Smaller chip technology can help manufacturers improve performance while using less power, although real-world results will also depend on the phone’s cooling system, software, and battery.

MediaTek says the new processor delivers up to 17% higher single-core performance than the previous generation. It is also claimed to be up to 37% more energy efficient in single-core workloads.

The CPU uses eight high-performance cores, including Arm C2 Ultra and C2 Pro cores. This setup is designed to handle demanding apps, gaming, multitasking, and AI workloads without relying on lower-performance CPU cores.

New LPDDR6 and UFS 5.0 support

The Dimensity 9600 Pro is also one of the first smartphone platforms to support LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 storage.

These newer standards are designed to move data faster. Faster memory can help with demanding applications and AI workloads, while faster storage can reduce loading times and improve file transfers.

For users, this could become more noticeable as future smartphones use larger apps, more advanced games, and AI features that need to process large amounts of data.

Dual NPU brings more AI to the phone

AI is another major part of the Dimensity 9600 Pro. MediaTek has equipped the chip with a dual NPU design that can divide AI tasks between two processing units.

One NPU is designed for generative AI tasks running directly on the phone, while the other can handle background AI workloads. The idea is to keep AI features running while reducing their impact on battery life.

This could be useful for phones that use AI assistants, image processing, translation, writing tools, and other features without sending every task to the cloud.

Stronger gaming and graphics

Graphics are handled by Arm’s new Mali G2 Ultra NX GPU. It supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, allowing supported games to produce more advanced lighting and reflections.

MediaTek says the GPU can deliver more than 185 frames per second in native gameplay under certain conditions. The company also claims that power consumption can drop by up to 24% during peak performance.

Actual gaming performance will naturally vary between phones because cooling, display resolution, software, and game optimization all play a role.

4K slow motion at 240fps

The Dimensity 9600 Pro also brings improvements for mobile photography and video.

Its ISP supports camera sensors with resolutions of up to 200 megapixels. One of the more interesting features is 4K slow-motion recording at up to 240 frames per second.

That gives smartphone makers the ability to offer very detailed slow-motion video while keeping the 4K resolution.

The chip also supports hardware decoding for the H.266 video format and can work with tri-fold smartphone displays.

Fast connectivity for flagship phones

Connectivity is another area where the new MediaTek chip gets an upgrade.

The Dimensity 9600 Pro includes an integrated 5G Advanced modem along with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.2 support. These features should give manufacturers a modern connectivity platform for upcoming flagship smartphones.

Oppo and Vivo phones are coming

The first confirmed phones using the new chip are the Oppo Find X10 Pro Max and Vivo X500 Pro.

Their exact availability and specifications will depend on each manufacturer and market. More phones using the Dimensity 9600 Pro are also expected to appear as the new platform reaches more smartphone brands.

The MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro marks an important step for MediaTek as 2nm technology starts moving into flagship smartphones. With faster CPU performance, newer memory and storage standards, dedicated AI hardware, ray tracing, and advanced video features, the chip gives manufacturers plenty of new hardware to build around.