MediaTek unveils the new Dimensity 9500s and 8500: AI and gaming at the center of it all

Designed to push beyond current performance, energy efficiency, and artificial intelligence capabilities, the new Dimensity 9500s and Dimensity 8500 aim to strengthen MediaTek’s presence in flagship and premium segments. The new SoCs are destined for the high-end and upper-mid-range, and the first confirmations have already arrived as the official announcement approaches, with Xiaomi at the top of the list.

Dimensity 9500s and 8500 official: all the news on MediaTek’s latest announced chipsets

The flagship of the new offering is represented by the Dimensity 9500s, an SoC built with a 3 nm manufacturing process that continues the All Big Core architecture. The octa-core chip includes an ultra-core Cortex-X925 reaching a clock speed of 3.73 GHz, supported by three premium Cortex-X4 cores and four performance Cortex-A720 cores.

For gaming enthusiasts, the integration of the GPU Immortalis-G925 ensures an immersive experience with advanced ray tracing support, while the proprietary MAGT 3.0 and MFRC 3.0 technologies optimize energy efficiency during intense gaming sessions, significantly extending battery life.

On the multimedia front, the MediaTek Imagiq image processor enables video recording in 8K Dolby Vision HDR and real-time motion tracking at 30fps.

Generative artificial intelligence is the other major pillar of the Dimensity 9500s, thanks to an NPU optimized for multimodal reasoning. This computing power enables advanced everyday features such as automatic summarization of calls, meetings, and files, as well as AI-based photo editing tools.

Connectivity also reaches new standards: the 5G Release-17 modem supports downlink speeds up to 7 Gbps, while MediaTek Xtra Range 3.0 technology extends indoor Wi-Fi range. A particularly innovative feature is the direct Bluetooth phone-to-phone connection, capable of reaching a distance of 5 kilometers.

The first smartphone with the Dimensity 9500s has already been confirmed: it will be the Redmi Turbo 5 Max, arriving in China during January — in the future it could debut here under POCO.

Parallelamente, the Dimensity 8500 positions itself as the ideal solution for the premium segment, using a 4 nm process and a CPU architecture with eight Cortex-A725 cores reaching up to 3.4 GHz. The chipset supports LPDDR5X memories at 9600 Mbps, ensuring fast multitasking and reduced power consumption.

The integrated Mali-G720 GPU offers a 25% peak performance increase over the previous generation, while reducing energy consumption by 20%.

Also in this tier, MediaTek has introduced ray tracing for mainstream mobile games and an eighth-generation NPU that supports major language models (LLMs) and image generation, including AI algorithms for ultra-sharp telephoto shots.