Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 9300 benchmarked

Qualcomm introduced its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset in October, 2023 whereas MediaTek introduced its Dimensity 9300 in November. These chipsets are anticipated to energy a bunch of flagship telephones in 2024, however machine makers are losing little time in adopting these processors.

We’ve already seen handsets with each the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Dimensity 9300 launching. We acquired our fingers on the Snapdragon-toting REDMAGIC 9 Professional and the Dimensity-equipped vivo X100 Professional. This provides us the primary alternative to see how these new chipsets fare towards one another in real-world gadgets.

The 2 processors have a number of options in widespread, like a TSMC 4nm course of, Bluetooth 5.4, and assist for hardware-based ray tracing. However in any other case, you’re two divergent approaches.

Qualcomm adopts a 1+5+2 CPU format, that includes one huge Cortex-X4 core, 5 medium Cortex-A720 cores, and two little Cortex-A520 cores. This implies we’ve acquired yet another medium core and one much less little core in comparison with the earlier flagship Snapdragon chip.

Qualcomm is amping up the clock velocity right here too. All of those cores are working at the next frequency than their counterparts on the vanilla Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. That combo of upper clock velocity plus newer CPU cores is fairly promising, on paper.

In the meantime, the Dimensity 9300 eschews little cores totally in favor of 4 Cortex-X4 CPU cores and 4 medium Cortex-A720 cores. This can be a very aggressive method at first look.

The Dimensity 9300 brings the next clock velocity for the massive X4 core, however the three different X4 cores characteristic a lowered 2.85GHz clock velocity consistent with the medium A715 cores seen within the Dimensity 9200. In the meantime, the 4 Cortex-A720 medium cores listed below are clocked at simply 2GHz. In different phrases, MediaTek has a great deal of huge and medium cores, however it isn’t working all of them at full tilt, so we’re curious to see what this implies for multi-core workloads.

Qualcomm additionally brings its top-notch Adreno GPU and X75 modem, whereas MediaTek depends on its in-house modem and Arm’s Immortalis-G720 MC12 graphics.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 9300 benchmarks

Apple’s A17 Professional nonetheless beats each Android processors in terms of single-core and multi-core CPU efficiency. And the single-core benefit is especially huge. Nevertheless, it’s a intently fought contest for second place between the brand new Android chips.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 contained in the REDMAGIC 9 Professional has a slight edge in terms of single-core scores, whereas the Dimensity 9300 within the vivo 100 Professional delivers a detailed multi-core win. It’s shut sufficient that the outcomes may conceivably go both means with one other producer’s cellphone.

You’d assume that MediaTek’s chip would run away within the multi-core take a look at given the usage of 4 heavy-lifting Cortex-X4 cores. However don’t overlook that solely certainly one of these cores is clocked above 3GHz (3.25GHz, to be exact), whereas the three different X4 cores max out at 2.85GHz. Mixed with Qualcomm’s resolution to supply extra cache and elevated clock speeds on six cores, and the Dimensity 9300 edges out the Snapdragon chip by solely a small margin.

GPU testing through 3DMark represents a big win for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, although. The one-off Wild Life take a look at exhibits a large ~26% benefit for the Snapdragon-toting REDMAGIC cellphone. The Dimensity 9300 cellphone nonetheless beats the iPhone 15 Professional and the Galaxy S23 Extremely, however there’s actually a gulf to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 handset.

It’s additionally fascinating to notice that the Photo voltaic Bay ray tracing take a look at exhibits an virtually ~21% benefit for Qualcomm and REDMAGIC. That is an about-turn in comparison with early this 12 months when the Dimensity 9200 was the massive winner in ray tracing benchmarks. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 was capable of slender the hole in these exams because of updates, however it nonetheless lagged behind. So it looks as if the mix of a extra highly effective GPU plus optimizations is paying off big-time. Not that we’re seeing many cellular video games utilizing ray tracing within the first place.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 9300 stress testing

As soon as-off benchmark exams solely give us an concept of peak efficiency. However who cares about Apple-beating speeds if it might solely be sustained for 2 seconds? That’s why we put the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Dimensity 9300 telephones by way of some GPU stress testing. That is extra demanding than real-world gaming eventualities however nonetheless provides us an concept of what to anticipate in extraordinarily lengthy gaming periods, prolonged bouts of video recording, and different equally demanding persistent use circumstances. It’s regular to see some throttling in these exams, however which one throttles extra?

The REDMAGIC 9 Professional understandably dominates the Wild Life stress take a look at with the cooling fan enabled in efficiency mode. Disable the energetic cooling, nevertheless, and we see main dips and peaks earlier than settling into some rock-solid efficiency from run 5 onwards. That is nonetheless a big drop total, representing 67% stability, and is definitely beneath peak Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Dimensity 9200 scores.

As huge of a drop because the REDMAGIC 9 Professional experiences, the vivo X100 Professional and Dimensity 9300 ship a much more unstable expertise over the size of the take a look at. The cellphone solely maintained 44% stability by the top, which means its efficiency dropped by nicely over half. What’s much more regarding is the truth that the Galaxy S23 Extremely, utilizing the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip, finally managed to edge out the Dimensity handset. Even the Dimensity 9200-toting vivo X90 Professional is nipping at its successor’s heels.

Issues aren’t any extra encouraging after we check out the Wild Life Excessive stress take a look at. This pushes the telephones much more, and the REDMAGIC cellphone drops 30% of its efficiency out-of-the-box when going from the primary run to the second run. However it manages to keep up this efficiency all the best way to the top, which is fairly respectable.

By comparability, the vivo X100 Professional began considerably behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 however grabbed the lead from the second run. The cellphone solely held onto the lead till run seven, owing to a gentle decline that continued for the remainder of the take a look at. That is fascinating, because it suggests the chip might maintain up fairly nicely in actual video games that aren’t as hectic as this take a look at. Nevertheless, the Dimensity 9300 cellphone in any other case yielded an abysmal 48.2% stability. This efficiency finally places it nicely beneath the Dimensity 9200 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s remaining scores.

The Photo voltaic Bay ray tracing stress take a look at additionally sees equally poor efficiency from the MediaTek chip, leading to simply 47.4% stability. It finally ends up being crushed by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Apple A17 Professional. In truth, the Dimensity 9200 manages to edge out its successor once more.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 contained in the REDMAGIC 9 Professional doesn’t fare significantly better, dropping efficiency by roughly a 3rd out-of-the-gate however nonetheless holding regular for the remainder of it to simply beat its rivals. Unusually sufficient, turning on the REDMAGIC’s cooling fan leads to rock-solid efficiency till run 17, when it registers a mammoth ~62% decline earlier than ending with a ~75% total drop. It looks as if not even a cooling fan can tame this dragon when pushed to absolute extremes.

It must also be famous that the REDMAGIC 9 Professional is a gaming cellphone. So it’s potential that extra typical Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 telephones may see huge drops in peak benchmark scores owing to lower than sufficient cooling and extra conservative efficiency targets. The REDMAGIC cellphone packs an array of passive cooling options in addition to a cooling fan, however the latter was solely activated when working exams in efficiency mode. Both means, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 is the massive loser in stress testing. However the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 doesn’t emerge unscathed in any respect.

It’s clear that Qualcomm and MediaTek’s new chips are on a good footing so far as CPU efficiency is worried, with the 2 buying and selling blows in single-core and multi-core benchmarks. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 takes a transparent lead within the GPU exams, although, however the Dimensity 9300 remains to be better of the remainder right here.

Stress testing is one other matter totally, because the Dimensity 9300-equipped vivo X100 Professional even loses to previous-generation silicon.  Against this, the Snapdragon-equipped REDMAGIC 9 Professional has a transparent lead over older chipsets and the newest Apple and MediaTek silicon — even when it’s not delivering a rock-solid expertise.

It’s value reiterating that the REDMAGIC handset is a gaming cellphone with an array of passive cooling measures (along with the cooling fan in efficiency mode). We’ll seemingly see totally different outcomes when telephones just like the Galaxy S24 sequence arrive. It’s additionally potential that the vivo X100 Professional’s cooling options are woefully insufficient slightly than the MediaTek chip being at fault. In any case, we complained about warmth and efficiency when stress testing the X90 Professional earlier this 12 months. Regardless of the case could also be, the primary Dimensity 9300-powered cellphone is essentially disappointing in terms of sustaining a heavy GPU workload.

The X100 Professional remains to be a compelling all-around premium flagship cellphone, although, so it warrants consideration in order for you a flexible high-end machine that ticks a great deal of packing containers. Nevertheless, those that worth efficiency and gaming ought to keep watch over Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 telephones just like the REDMAGIC 9 Professional as a substitute. Dimensity 9300 telephones ought to nonetheless provide respectable efficiency and a superb expertise when taking part in superior video games, however a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 cellphone will seemingly cope significantly better with future demanding titles.