I have given MediaTek a lot of grief for their relentless and pointless chipset launches the past few months. The MediaTek Dimensity 820 is set to launch on the 18th of May just two weeks after the announcement of the Dimensity 1000+ SoC. That launch was peak pointlessness for Mediatek, they essentially enabled 144Hz compatibility on the Dimensity 1000 and claimed it was a new chipset.
I was expected another dud from MediaTek with reports that the launch would be a Dimensity 800+ which then would have likely been a tiny tweak leading to a new chipset name.
However, it looks like that may not be the case, it could be that Mediatek is responding to the recent launch of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 768G which offers a moderate 15+% boost in performance to their existing Snapdragon 765G.
It is believed the new chipset, which will be called the Dimensity 820, will offer higher frequencies than the older Dimensity 800.
It is claimed the CPU will reach clock speeds up to 2.6GHz, up from 2.0GHz on the Dimensity 800. This would represent a massive 30% boost in clock frequencies – if this is true it would be quite impressive, the recent launch of the MediaTek Helio G85 offered just a 5% increase in the GPU frequency whereas the SD768G offered a 16% and 9% improvement for its two main cores.
One rumour suggests that Mediatek may switch to a slightly different design with the four A76 cores operating at different frequencies with a 2×2 cluster with 2+2+4 CPU setup with two prime cores at 2.6GHz, two big ones at 2.2GHz and four small ones at 2.0GHz. If this is true, it is still impressive, offering a 30% boost on two cores and a 10% boost on the other too.
The MediaTek Dimensity 800 was already a potent mid-range chipset offering a CPU configuration of:
- 4x Cortex A76 @ 2.0GHz
- 4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz
In comparison, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G and 768G use just two Cortex A76 cores with each core clocked differently with:
- Snapdragon 768G
- 1x Cortex A76 @ 2.8GHz
- 1x Cortex-A76 @ 2.4GHz
- 6x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz
- Snapdragon 765G
- 1x Cortex A76 @ 2.4GHz
- 1x Cortex-A76 @ 2.2GHz
- 6x Cortex-A55 @ 1.8GHz
The new Qualcomm Snapdragon 768G does have a significant improvement with its GPU performance too claiming to offer a 15% boost compared to the SD75G on its Adreno 620.
At the moment we don’t know what Mediatek will do with the GPU on the Dimensity 820, the existing 800 features Mali-G57 with four processors at an undisclosed frequency. . Arm claim it offers 30% performance improvement over the G52 it replaces.
It is possible, if not likely, some other minors improvements are made, such as better compatibility with high refresh rates.
The new chipset will be officially announced on Monday the 18th of May at 14:30 in China which should be 7:30AM UK time I think.
