MediaTek just launched its newest flagship phone chipset, the Dimensity 9500. This SoC powers the next wave of premium smartphones. It delivers big gains in AI processing, gaming visuals, and overall efficiency. It is based on the 3nm process that brings console-style ray tracing, a faster NPU, and better CPU speed. So here’s everything new and improved.
MediaTek Dimensity 9500: Faster CPU
The company revealed the Dimensity 9500 today, September 22, 2025. It has eight cores: one 4.21GHz C1 ultra core, three 3.5GHz super C1 cores, and four 2.7GHz big C1 pro cores. MediaTek says single-core speed rises 32 percent over the last model. Multi-core jumps 17 percent. At full tilt with the ultra core, power draw drops up to 55 percent.
Performance boosts come without extra battery drain. The chip saves 30 percent more power in tasks like multitasking, gaming, and social media calls. A fresh cache and memory setup adds the first 4-channel UFS 4.1 support. That lifts AI model work by 40 percent.
Improved AI and Camera Capabilities
It wouldn’t be a high-end smartphone processor without AI capabilities, and the Dimensity 9500 brings a few interesting improvements. The NPU 990 part offers a two-fold increase in performance, support for a 128,000 token window (versus 32,000 on the Dimensity 9400 and Tensor G5), and 4K image generation.
MediaTek adds that the NPU is divided into a “performance” core and a “flexible” core. However, the company also offers a so-called “super-efficient” NPU that’s apparently the industry’s first CIM-based (compute-in-memory) NPU. This is meant to permanently run small, low-power AI models on-device. The firm says you can expect power consumption to be reduced by 42% when running these small, low-power models via the super-efficient NPU.
| Dimensity 9500 | Dimensity 9400 | Dimensity 9300 | |
| CPU Config | 1x C1-Ultra @ 3.63GHz 3x C1-Premium @ 3.3GHz 4x C1-Pro @ 2.4GHz | 1x Cortex-X925 @ 3.63GHz 3x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3GHz 4x Cortex-A720 @ 2.4GHz | 1x Cortex-X4 @ 3.25GHz 3x Cortex-X4 @ 2.85GHz 4x Cortex-A720 @ 2.0GHz |
| GPU | Arm Mali-G1 Ultra 12-core Hardware ray-tracing | Arm Immortalis-G725 12-core Hardware ray-tracing | Arm Immortalis-G720 12-core Hardware ray-tracing |
| Caches | 16MB L3 10MB system-level cache | 12MB L3 10MB system-level cache | 8MB L3 10MB system-level cache |
| AI | NPU 990 Agentic AI Engine (BitNet 1-bit support) | NPU 890 Agentic AI Engine | APU 790 (added INT4 support and hardware compression) |
| RAM support | LPDDR5X @ 10,667Mbps | LPDDR5X @ 10,667Mbps | LPDDR5T @ 9600Mbps |
| Storage | UFS 4.1 (four lanes) | UFS 4.0 with MCQ | UFS 4.0 with MCQ |
| 4G/5G Modem | LTE/5G (integrated) Sub6GHz and mmWave 7,400Mbps down (sub-6GHz) | LTE/5G (integrated) Sub6GHz and mmWave 7,000Mbps down (sub-6GHz) | LTE/5G (integrated) Sub6GHz and mmWave 7,000Mbps down |
| Other networking | Bluetooth 6 Wi-Fi 7 | Bluetooth 6 Wi-Fi 7 | Bluetooth 5.4 Wi-Fi 7 |
| Process | TSMC 3nm N3P | TSMC 3nm N3P | TSMC 4nm N4P |
Finally, the Dimensity 9500 supports BitNet 1-bit for large model processing, specifically supporting absolutely tiny 1.58-bit models on the NPU. MediaTek says this support means a 50% reduction in power consumption and reduced storage requirements for on-device AI processing.
The Dimensity 9500 brings a few notable improvements in this regard. The company says it now offers RAW domain pre-processing, up to 200MP capture, and 4K/60fps portrait video. MediaTek says you can also expect “Android’s first” 4K/120fps Dolby Vision video capture with electronic stabilization.
Console-level Gaming Tech
Graphics get a lift too, thanks to the ARM G1-Ultra GPU. It delivers 33 percent more speed and 42 percent better efficiency. Frame rates hit 120fps with ray tracing on. MediaTek teamed with top studios for Unreal Engine 5.6’s MegaLights and 5.5’s Nanite. These bring console-quality real-time rendering and light effects.
What else to know about the Dimensity 9500?
Other notable features include “Android-first” support for one-nit display brightness, UFS 4.1 four-lane support, 35% longer Bluetooth audio range, and AI enhancements to reduce 5G and Wi-Fi power consumption. The modem also supports 7.4Gbps downlink speeds, and apparently delivers 15% more bandwidth due to 5CC carrier aggregation.
The chip debuts worldwide in Vivo’s X300 series. Those phones launch in China on October 13, 2025. They lead the next round of flagship devices.
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