MediaTek Dimensity 8100: Leaked details and early performance numbers create hype for a Snapdragon 888 fighter

While the Dimensity 9000 may dominate the headlines as MediaTek's strongest attempt at outperforming Qualcomm, the company also has the Dimensity 8000 lined up for launch. It teased the chipset back in December at the Dimensity 9000 launch event, and word on the grapevine indicates that a Dimensity 8100 is also on the way.

According to Chinese source It's Fat, the MediaTek Dimensity 8000-series will launch officially on March 1. MediaTek is yet to confirm that launch date but it's corroborated by Digital Chat Station. Information on the MediaTek Dimensity 8000 and 8100 is a bit conflicting, though. Digital Chat Station claims the new chipsets will be built on TSMC's 5 nm node instead of the 4 nm node underpinning the Dimensity 9000, but It's Fat appears to insinuate that the chip could be built on the same node as the Dimensity 9000, with ARM's new V9 architecture, ditching the X2 super core, and trading in the Mali G710 GPU for a G510. Both leakers seem to agree on the Mali-G510 GPU at least, though.

It's important to note that every performance metric or detail of the Dimensity 8000 revealed so far is also valid for the Dimensity 8100, as the latter seems to just be an overclocked—and likely better binned—variant of the former. According to leaks, the Dimensity 8100 will likely find more widespread use, and is already set to feature on devices like the Redmi K50 and Realme GT Neo 3.

Digital Chat Station has also released early benchmark numbers of the Dimensity 8000. The MediaTek chipset records a score of 820,230 in total, with a CPU score of 197,563 and a GPU score of 315,470. While these numbers are on pre-production software and hardware, they keep up quite well with Qualcomm's last-gen flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 888. The Snapdragon 888, on a phone like OnePlus 9 Pro, scores 806,964, 198,510, and 317,247 in those three categories respectively. Right about identical. This indicates that the MediaTek Dimensity 8100 could well edge out the Snapdragon 888 in both CPU and GPU performance.

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