MediaTek Dimensity 9000 vs Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 vs Apple A15 Bionic: The underdog fights back

Apple set the pace with the launch of the A15 Bionic months ago. Qualcomm and MediaTek have now both replied in kind, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Dimensity 9000 respectively. There have been multiple comparisons of those chipsets but the latest of them pits them against each other directly and gives the closest look yet at the differences in performance.

Starting off with Geekbench 5, the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 leads the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 with a multi-core score of 4474 versus the Qualcomm chipset's 3810. In the single-core test, the Dimensity 9000 remains ahead, albeit marginally, scoring 1287 versus the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1's 1200. 

Those numbers translate into about a 10% advantage for Dimensity 9000 on average, but the MediaTek chipset stands out in efficiency as well, as it averages about a 5% lower power draw on the Geekbench tests. Those numbers also match up nicely to SPECint figures from other sources. As expected, TSMC's 4 nm node is qualitatively more efficient than Samsung's node.

While Geekbench isn't great at cross-platform comparisons, the A15 Bionic does lead the chart handily with scores of 4908 and 1741 in multi-core and single-core tests respectively. In addition, the Apple chipset also consumes a bit less power than the Dimensity 9000 on the test.

On the GPU end, the Dimensity 9000 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 look to offer identical performance. Or, at least, with regards to the GFXBench Aztec Ruin test. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 scores 43; the Dimensity 9000, 42. However, the Dimensity 9000 gets there while spending a bit less power. About 25% less, to be exact.

The A15 Bionic demolishes both chipsets in this test with a score of 54 while drawing marginally less power than the Dimensity 9000. Apple has different applications of the A15 Bionic, however, so while the iPhone 13 Pro Max's reigns supreme, the A15 on the vanilla iPhone 13 is about equal to the Dimensity 9000 and Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It does draw less power than every rival, however.

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