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 number 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 bought our palms on the Snapdragon-toting REDMAGIC 9 Professional and the Dimensity-equipped vivo X100 Professional. This offers us the primary alternative to see how these new chipsets fare towards one another in real-world gadgets.

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

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

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

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

The Dimensity 9300 brings the next clock pace for the large X4 core, however the three different X4 cores function a diminished 2.85GHz clock pace in step 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 massive and medium cores, but it surely isn’t operating 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 on the subject of single-core and multi-core CPU efficiency. And the single-core benefit is especially large. Nonetheless, 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 on the subject 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 might conceivably go both means with one other producer’s telephone.

You’d suppose that MediaTek’s chip would run away within the multi-core take a look at given using 4 heavy-lifting Cortex-X4 cores. However don’t overlook that solely one in all 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 determination 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 major win for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, although. The one-off Wild Life take a look at exhibits an enormous ~26% benefit for the Snapdragon-toting REDMAGIC telephone. The Dimensity 9300 telephone 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 nearly ~21% benefit for Qualcomm and REDMAGIC. That is an about-turn in comparison with early this 12 months when the Dimensity 9200 was the large winner in ray tracing benchmarks. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 was capable of slim the hole in these assessments because of updates, but it surely nonetheless lagged behind. So it looks like the mix of a extra highly effective GPU plus optimizations is paying off big-time. Not that we’re seeing many cell video games utilizing ray tracing within the first place.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 9300 stress testing

As soon as-off benchmark assessments solely give us an thought 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 thought of what to anticipate in extraordinarily lengthy gaming classes, prolonged bouts of video recording, and different equally demanding persistent use instances. It’s regular to see some throttling in these assessments, 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 lively cooling, nonetheless, and we see main dips and peaks earlier than settling into some rock-solid efficiency from run 5 onwards. That is nonetheless a major drop total, representing 67% stability, and is definitely under peak Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Dimensity 9200 scores.

As massive 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 telephone 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 once we check out the Wild Life Excessive stress take a look at. This pushes the telephones much more, and the REDMAGIC telephone drops 30% of its efficiency out-of-the-box when going from the primary run to the second run. But it surely 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 telephone 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. Nonetheless, the Dimensity 9300 telephone in any other case yielded an abysmal 48.2% stability. This efficiency finally places it nicely under the Dimensity 9200 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2’s ultimate 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 a lot 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 ends in rock-solid efficiency till run 17, when it registers a mammoth ~62% decline earlier than ending with a ~75% total drop. It looks like not even a cooling fan can tame this dragon when pushed to absolute extremes.

It also needs to be famous that the REDMAGIC 9 Professional is a gaming telephone. So it’s attainable that extra standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 telephones might see massive drops in peak benchmark scores owing to lower than satisfactory cooling and extra conservative efficiency targets. The REDMAGIC telephone packs an array of passive cooling options in addition to a cooling fan, however the latter was solely activated when operating assessments in efficiency mode. Both means, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 is the large 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 anxious, 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 assessments, although, however the Dimensity 9300 continues to be better of the remainder right here.

Stress testing is one other matter fully, 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 most recent Apple and MediaTek silicon — even when it’s not delivering a rock-solid expertise.

It’s price reiterating that the REDMAGIC handset is a gaming telephone with an array of passive cooling measures (along with the cooling fan in efficiency mode). We’ll doubtless see totally different outcomes when telephones just like the Galaxy S24 collection arrive. It’s additionally attainable that the vivo X100 Professional’s cooling options are woefully insufficient relatively 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 telephone is basically disappointing on the subject of sustaining a heavy GPU workload.

The X100 Professional continues to be a compelling all-around premium flagship telephone, although, so it warrants consideration if you would like a flexible high-end machine that ticks a great deal of packing containers. Nonetheless, those that worth efficiency and gaming ought to control Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 telephones just like the REDMAGIC 9 Professional as a substitute. Dimensity 9300 telephones ought to nonetheless supply respectable efficiency and a superb expertise when taking part in superior video games, however a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 telephone will doubtless cope a lot better with future demanding titles.