Mediatek is once again drawing on ARM's processor kit to the fullest: contrary to ARM's recommendation, the Dimensity 9500 mobile processor uses only performance cores to maintain high performance. This time, there is one C1-Ultra, three C1-Premium, and four C1-Pro from ARM's renamed Lumex series (formerly Cortex).
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For those who are not yet familiar with the new naming scheme: The C1 Ultra is the successor to the Cortex-X925 and ARM's fastest mobile core. The C1 Premium is a slimmed-down version with less cache and a lower clock frequency. The C1 Pro corresponds to a Cortex-A725 successor.
An overview of all improvements to the Dimensity 9500.
(Image:Â Mediatek)
No traditional efficiency cores
Mediatek has dispensed with ARM's actual efficiency cores (formerly Cortex-A520, now C1-Nano) since the penultimate generation, Dimensity 9300. This core category is primarily designed for a small chip area to save production costs. The energy efficiency of low-clocked performance cores should actually be higher because, thanks to their out-of-order design, they can sort their tasks and process them much faster.
While the core-adjacent Level 2 caches remain the same size, the company is increasing the Level 3 cache from 12 to 16 MB. The processor-wide system-level cache (SLC) remains at 10 MB.
With the Dimensity 9500, Mediatek promises 32 percent higher single-threading performance compared to the Dimensity 9400. About half of this is due to the clock frequency alone: at 4.21 GHz, the C1-Ultra breaks the 4 GHz mark for the first time at Mediatek. The Cortex-X925 in the Dimensity 9400 achieves 3.62 GHz and 3.73 GHz in the accelerated 9400+.
All other CPU cores also clock higher than before: the C1 Premium reaches 3.5 GHz (+6 percent) and the C1 Pro 2.7 GHz (+13 percent). All-core performance should therefore also increase significantly, provided that the processor's energy budget is not limited.
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Block diagram showing the structure of the Dimensity 9500. C1 cores from the Lumex family are included for the first time.
(Image:Â Mediatek)
Optimized 3 nm process
Mediatek is likely to achieve this leap mainly through chip design. The company is switching to an improved 3-nanometer process (N3P instead of N3E) at chip contract manufacturer TSMC, but this only brings minor improvements. TSMC claims five percent more performance with the same power consumption or up to ten percent lower power consumption with the same performance.
Mediatek, on the other hand, promises a 37 percent reduction in CPU energy consumption in everyday use. The enlarged L1 and L3 caches and a new scheduler that distributes tasks are said to play a major role in this. The processor now has around 30 billion transistors.
On the GPU side, ARM's Mali G1 Ultra with 12 shader clusters is used. Mediatek promises 33 percent more peak performance and up to 42 percent higher energy efficiency. The performance of the ray tracing units is expected to double, but ray tracing graphics effects remain a marginal feature in smartphone games due to their generally high hardware requirements.
The Neural Processing Unit (NPU) 990 for AI algorithms is said to calculate integer and floating-point values up to twice as fast as the NPU 890 in the Dimensity 9400. Mediatek is promoting the first AI unit that relies on Compute-in-Memory (CIM). The company describes the NPU as an “extended Level 1 cache” on which calculations run. The arithmetic units take a back seat. Microsoft's 1-bit models of the BitNet family are designed to run natively on the NPU.
As usual, there are further improvements in the image processor (IPU) and the display controller, among other things. The Dimensity 9500 is said to be able to dim displays to one candela per square meter (cd/m², also known as nit) – useful for dark environments, such as at night in bed.
Improvements to the image processor and media engine.
(Image:Â Mediatek)
Smartphones in October
The first smartphones with the Dimensity 9500 are expected to be released worldwide as early as October 2025. The main customers for Mediatek's top models are typically Oppo and Vivo, and occasionally Xiaomi under the Redmi brand. Mediatek is the biggest competitor to Qualcomm's Snapdragon processors among Android smartphones – for all manufacturers that do not design their own chips. Rumors that Samsung could switch some Galaxy S models to Mediatek have not yet materialized.
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