MediaTek Dimensity 820 vs Snapdragon 765G: MediaTek stamps its authority on the competition

Qualcomm may dominate the premium Android segment with its Snapdragon 800-series offering, but MediaTek has slowly clawed its way back to relevance over the past few years, with a focus on the mid-range. At the moment, the Snapdragon 765G is Qualcomm's most powerful SoC outside the Snapdragon 800 lineup—the Snapdragon 768G is yet to hit consumers—so how does it compare to the equivalent MediaTek offering?

MediaTek's champion is the Dimensity 820, positioned below the Dimensity 1000-series, and finding a home in smartphones like the Redmi 10X Pro 5G. The Snapdragon 765G, on the other hand, has been used on phones like the OnePlus Nord and Redmi K30 5G.

Starting with Geekbench, the Dimensity 820 comes away from the single-core test with a score of 629. The Snapdragon 765G, on the other hand, earns a score of 606. A slim 3% lead that can be written off due to testing variances, essentially. 

It's in the multi-core test that the Dimensity 820 flexes its muscles, though, as it pulls a hefty score of 2,568, pretty much destroying the Snapdragon 765G and its puny 1,710 score. Unlike with the single-core test, the advantage is clearly for the Dimensity 820 here, as it shows a massive 50% lead in performance versus the competition.

Moving over to AnTuTu, the Dimensity 820 records a CPU score of 124,080. In comparison, the Snapdragon 765G only manages a score of 102,643. While the Snapdragon 765G's score here is a median value, the score for the Dimensity 820 was from a single test, and after running other benchmarks. It's possible it may have throttled at that point and could be capable of even better numbers. It's still a resounding victory for the MediaTek chipset, depicting a 20% advantage in CPU performance.

The Dimensity 820's dominance continues on the GPU side of things, too with a score of 123,609 on AnTuTu's GPU test. The Snapdragon 765G, on the other hand, comes away with a score of 92,870—that's a 33% advantage for the MediaTek chipset. 

For what it's worth, that also carries over to 3DMark, where the Dimensity 820 pulled away with a score of 4,518 in the Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) test, versus the Snapdragon 765G's 3,442. That's about the same differential as on the AnTuTu GPU test, giving a 31% advantage to the Dimensity 820.

It's safe to say that MediaTek's Dimensity 820 is a considerably more powerful chipset than the Snapdragon 765G. In fact, going by our previous comparisons, it looks to be right on par with the Snapdragon 845, with better CPU performance but about 10% worse GPU figures. 

The days of MediaTek being the underdogs are over, as the company's new chipsets handily dominate the budget, mid-range, and sub-premium segments. That's a good thing too; more competition is always welcome.