Qualcomm has introduced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, its next-gen flagship SoC, at its annual Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 follows the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which powered flagship phones in 2025, such as the OnePlus 13, Samsung Galaxy S-series, Xiaomi 15 lineup, to name a few. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is aimed at high-end smartphones with a focus on performance gains, power efficiency and AI capabilities. Meanwhile, its rival MediaTek recently announced its Dimensity 9500 SoC for flagship phones and here’s how the two platforms compare based purely on the specifications and features.
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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 uses the third-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU, with 2 prime cores clocked at up to 4.6 GHz and six performance cores clocked at up to 3.62 GHz. The company claims a 20% performance boost and 35% power efficiency improvement over its predecessor. The CPU also integrates hardware matrix acceleration for AI tasks.
MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 adopts an all-big-core design with eight cores: 1× Arm C1-Ultra, 3× C1-Premium, and 4× C1-Pro, paired with 16MB L3 and 10MB SLC cache. The company reports a 32% faster single-core performance, 55% improved ultra-core efficiency, and up to 37% lower CPU peak power use compared to its previous generation.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features a redesigned Adreno GPU and claims a 23% graphics performance boost, 25% improved ray tracing and 20% higher GPU power efficiency. It supports Unreal Engine 5 with features like mesh shading and tile memory heap for sustained gaming sessions, along with a full suite of Snapdragon Elite Gaming features.
MediaTek equips the Dimensity 9500 with the Arm Mali-G1 Ultra GPU. The company cites 33% better GPU performance and 119% improved ray tracing compared to its predecessor, alongside 42% better power efficiency at peak. It is also the first to support 120FPS ray-traced mobile gaming, with native Unreal Engine 5.5 integration, including Nanite and MegaLights technologies.
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Qualcomm integrates a Hexagon NPU with 37% faster AI performance and features such as the Personal Knowledge Graph and Personal Scribe, enabling on-device agentic AI assistants.
MediaTek has introduced the NPU 990, described as over 2× faster than its previous generation, with 4K resolution text-to-image generation and a CIM-based architecture for efficiency. It supports both generative and agentic AI applications with claims of 56% reduced peak power use.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 debuts Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec recording, allowing studio-grade video capture on mobile. Its triple 20-bit ISP supports up to 320MP sensors, 8K at 60fps playback, and advanced AI-driven features like semantic segmentation, bokeh effects, and multi-frame noise reduction.
The Dimensity 9500 features the Imagiq 1190 ISP, supporting 200MP sensors, 8K at 60fps capture, and 4K at 120fps with EIS. It also enables a 4K60 cinematic mode, positioning itself as competitive in both video capture and stabilisation.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 supports on-device displays up to QHD+ at 240Hz and external displays at 8K30, with HDR formats including Dolby Vision, HDR10, HDR10+, and HDR Vivid.
The Dimensity 9500 supports displays up to WQHD+ at 180Hz, with additional tri-port MIPI for foldable devices. MediaTek also emphasises its MiraVision SmartScreen technology for uniformity, burn-in protection, and readability under extreme brightness or low-light conditions.
Qualcomm’s X85 5G Modem-RF supports peak download speeds of 12.5 Gbps and 3.7 Gbps uploads, along with 3GPP Release 18 readiness. Its FastConnect 7900 system delivers Wi-Fi 7 at 5.8 Gbps, 40% power savings, and integrated Bluetooth 6.0 and Ultra Wideband.
MediaTek’s modem, compliant with 3GPP Release 17, supports sub-6GHz 5CC CA up to 7.4 Gbps. The Dimensity 9500 also integrates Wi-Fi 7 with tri-band concurrency and peak speeds of 7.3 Gbps, plus Bluetooth 6.0. MediaTek highlights AI-assisted traffic prediction for power savings and more reliable connections.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 supports LPDDR5X RAM up to 5.3 MHz and UFS 4.1 storage.
Dimensity 9500 also supports LPDDR5X and introduces 4-lane UFS 4.1, doubling sequential data speeds and improving AI model load times by up to 40%.
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On paper, both the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and the Dimensity 9500 push smartphone chips into new territory with substantial upgrades in CPU, GPU, and AI performance, but they take slightly different paths to get there.
Qualcomm has leaned into raw speed, especially with its custom Oryon CPU and Adreno GPU, while also adding features designed to make phones feel more like professional tools. The highlight here is its Advanced Professional Video codec and triple 20-bit ISP, which could genuinely appeal to creators who rely on their phones for filming and editing. Qualcomm also puts a lot of emphasis on connectivity, with faster 5G uplink speeds and wide Wi-Fi 7 support.
MediaTek, by contrast, is betting on efficiency and consistency. It’s an “all big core” CPU design with expanded cache, meant to deliver smooth, lag-free everyday use even under heavy loads like opening multiple apps at once. For gaming, it taps the Vulkan ray tracing and Unreal Engine 5.5 integration, targeting console-level visuals on a phone.
Also read: Digit Tested: Where Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 stands against rivals