Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs MediaTek Dimensity 9500

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen. 3 (SM8650-AB) mobile platform is a high end SoC for Android-based smartphones and tablets. 

The cryo-CPU is based on ARM's v9.2 architecture and consists of three clusters: The first includes a fast prime core (ARM Cortex-X4) with up to 3.3 GHz. The second consists of three power cores with up to 3.2 GHz and two additional cores clocking at up to 3.0 GHz (all Cortex-A720). The efficiency cluster consists of two power-saving cores (Cortex-A520) that operate at up to 2.3 GHz. The SoC uses the integrated Adreno 750 for graphics acceleration. 

Compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen. 2, Qualcomm promises a 25 percent higher GPU clock rate, whose power consumption is said to have been reduced by 25 percent at the same time. Similarly, the CPU's performance is announced to be now a whopping 30 per cent faster and requires 20 per cent less power.

A special focus is also placed on machine learning (AI). The integrated Hexagon NPU is 98% faster than its predecessor and promises a 40% improvement in efficiency. Qualcomm's AI engine is the first to support multimodal generative AI models, including LLM, LVM and ASR, and can process up to 10 trillion parameters directly on the SoC. Image manipulation is said to be possible within fractions of a second. In addition, the NPU of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is also capable of INT4 and Meta Llama 2. 

Also back on board is Snapdragon Sight, Qualcomm's brand for camera functions. In addition to Ultra HDR, Dolby HDR is also supported for photos. Photos can now be enhanced by generative AI models and with the Video Magic Eraser (ArcSoft), unwanted people and objects can also be removed from videos. In addition, the ISP is able to distinguish real photos from AI-generated content. This is again a triple ISP (Image Signal Processor), which works with 18 bits and up to 12 layers. 

The integrated Snapdragon X75 Modem-RF 5G system allows simultaneous transfers of 5G-mmWave and 5G-Sub6, enabling data rates of up to 10 GBit/s in download and up to 3.5 GBit/s in upload. In addition, the modem is able to support all known 5G bands worldwide. Qualcomm's FastConnect 7800 is once again responsible for local communication, which can handle Bluetooth 5.4 with LE Audio and Wi-Fi 7, among other things.

The SoC is manufactured by TSMC in a 4 nm process.

MediaTek Dimensity 9500

The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 is a flagship processor (SoC) with 8 CPU cores (octa-core) for expensive Android phones and tablets, which was launched in the third quarter of 2025. It uses three CPU clusters based on a fast ARM C1-Ultra core with up to 4.2 GHz, three C1-Premium cores with up to 3.5 GHz and four small C1-Pro cores with up to 2.7 GHz. Together, the cores have access to 16 MB L3 cache and 10 MB SLC.

The chip can control main memory via LPDDR5X-10667. For communication, the SoC supports all modern technologies such as 5G Sub6, Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0.

According to our tests, the average performance is on a par with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite in the top class of SoCs for Android based smartphones. In the Geekbench tests, the Dimensity 9500 can easily set itself apart.

The SoC is manufactured at TSMC using the modern 3nm process (3rd generation, therefore probably N3P).