Snapdragon 870 vs MediaTek Dimensity 900

Recently, MediaTek announced a new mid-range chip namely the Dimensity 900. The latter has managed to appear on the OPPO Reno 6 series. And though this SoC is a classic mid-ranger and should be compared with the likes, such as the Snapdragon 780G. We decided to put it in a comparison with a chip from a higher category, the Snapdragon 870.

MediaTek 900

The MediaTek Dimensity 900 is built on the 6nm process technology and seems like it is the logical update over the Dimensity 800 with a faster CPU and better connectivity option. It came after MediaTek announced its two flagship chipsets Dimensity 1200 and Dimensity 1100 back in January. They are also built using the 6nm manufacturing process.

As for the CPU, it features two clusters – one with two Cortex-A78 cores at 2.4GHz for power and six Cortex-A55 units at 2 GHz for efficiency. In addition, the chipset supports cameras of up to 108MP resolution and video recording up to 4K@30 fps.

Brands that plan to use the Dimensity 900 chipset can opt to use either LPDDR5 or LPDDR4X memory, and UFS 3.1 or UFS 2.2 storage. The latter will enable them to differentiate smartphone designs based on market performance expectations and price points.

“The Dimensity 900 is the only chip in its class to flexibly support these leading memory and storage standards without requiring a platform redesign”.- MediaTek says.

The Dimensity 900 chipset features upgraded video capabilities from a standard dynamic range (SDR) to HDR with real-time enhancements of HDR10+ video playback to improve the color and contrast of content. Other features include: dual 5G SIM support, Bluetooth 5.2, and the latest dual-band Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

Snapdragon 870

If the Dimensity 900 is the upgraded version of the Dimensity 800, similarly the Snapdragon 870 is a slightly improved version of the Snapdragon 865. But they are from different weight classes. Therefore, the Snapdragon 870 is slightly faster than the old Snapdragon 865 and 865 Plus and slots in behind the high-end Snapdragon 888. This chipset is a high-end smartphone and tablet SoC that Qualcomm announced in early 2021. It comes with an integrated GPU called Adreno 650 which offers a slightly higher clock speed of 670MHz.

The built-in memory controller supports LPDDR5 with up to 2,750MHz and LPDDR4X with 2,133MHz. As we can see, here the two processors come with the same memory controller support.

In terms of the process technology, the chipset is a built-in power-efficient 7nm process, unlike the MediaTek Dimensity 900 that comes with a 6nm process.

The SoC integrates a fast ‘Prime Core’ that clocks up to 3.2GHz and three additional ARM Cortex-A77 performance cores. The latter can reach up to 2.42GHz. These are complemented by four power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores that clock up to a maximum of 1.8GHz. On the other hand, the Snapdragon 870 supports  global roaming and global multi-SIM. Other features include Dolby Vision for video capture on mobile, Hexagon Voice Assistant Accelerator for advanced voice use cases, etc.

High-end smartphones like the Black Shark 4, OnePlus 9R, Xiaomi Mi 11X, Vivo iQOO Neo 5, Vivo X60 / Pro, Xiaomi POCO F3, OPPO Find X3, and many others come with the Snapdragon 870.

Performance tests in popular benchmarks

The AnTuTu 8 Benchmark measures CPU, GPU, RAM, and I/O performance in different scenarios. The AnTuTu score of the Dimensity 900 is 487838, while the benchmark of the Snapdragon 870 is 655763. So, in the AnTuTu score, the Snapdragon 870’s performance is better. But there is nothing surprising.

#DigitalChatStation
The mt6877 (temporarily named Dimensity 900) engineering machine ran a score of about 480,000. For reference, the Dimensity 820 and Snapdragon 768G have a score of 440,000, and the Snapdragon 780G has a score of 540,000.

— Digital Chat Station (@chat_station) May 11, 2021

The GeekBench 4 test shows raw single-threaded and multithreaded CPU performance. The single-core score of the Snapdragon chipset is around 4300, and the multi-score of the chipset is 13000. A mysterious VIVO handset spotted in GeekBench 4 with the Dimensity 900 onboard. The screenshot shows it scores 3467 in a single-core test and 8852 in a multi-core test.

Conclusion

Taking into account the fact that the MediaTek Dimensity 900 is a mid-range chipset, while the Snapdragon 870 is considered to be a sub-flagship we cannot do a fair comparison. Though being a mid-range chipset, the Dimensity 900 has quite good indicators, and it is not that far behind the Snapdragon 870.