MediaTek Dimensity 8000, Dimensity 8100 High-End Processors Announced With 5nm Process: Specifications

MediaTek has announced its latest Dimensity 8000 and Dimensity 8100 chipsets, which may power the upcoming upper mid-range smartphones. These new smartphone processors will target the likes of the Snapdragon 870 and the Snapdragon 888/888+ in the market, but at a lower price.

Last year’s offering with similar specs—the Dimensity 1200, powered smartphones such as the Realme X7 Max and OnePlus Nord 2, and achieved a fair bit of success in the price category. Now, the Dimensity 8000/8100 looks to build on this success and brings higher performance, improved AI capabilities, better camera performance, and enhanced connectivity solutions, among many other features. 

MediaTek Dimensity 8000, Dimensity 8100: Features, Specifications

MediaTek says these new chipsets can be considered as smaller siblings of its flagship Dimensity 9000. However, we beg to differ, as the Dimensity 8000 and Dimensity 8100 come with a 4+4 CPU core configuration, whereas the Dimensity 9000 uses a 1+3+4 CPU configuration. The Dimensity 8000/8100 utilises older A78 cores, also used in the Dimensity 1200, as opposed to the latest X2 Super core of the Dimensity 9000. They are based on TSMC’s 5nm fabrication process, as opposed to the 4nm process of the Dimensity 9000. 

The four A78 cores on the Dimensity 8100 are clocked higher at 2.85Ghz, when compared to the 2.75Ghz clock frequency of the Dimensity 8000. These are supported by four efficiency A55 cores to complete the octa-core setup. The chipsets come integrated with an ARM Mali G-610 hexa-core GPU to handle intensive tasks such as video recording, rendering, or gaming. Furthermore, the chipsets get 4MB L3 L3 cache and support quad-channel LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage. 

Other noteworthy features include Bluetooth v5.3, 2×2 Wi-Fi 6E, 3GPP for sub-6GHz, Bluetooth LE Audio with Dual-Link True Wireless Stereo, and 2CC/200MHz carrier aggregation, among others. It can support up to a 200 MP camera and offer 4K video recording at 60fps with HDR10+. Both chipsets feature MiraVision 780 and support a 168 Hz refresh rate at FHD+ resolution. The Dimensity 8100 has the capability to crank up the resolution to WQHD+ at 120Hz.      

As far as synthetic benchmarks are concerned, MediaTek says that the Dimensity 8100 achieves 170 fps in GFXBench Manhattan benchmarks, while the Dimensity 8000 hits 140 fps. This suggests that the GPU is clocked at higher rates on the Dimensity 8100. Both the chipsets will be available in the first quarter of this year, with smartphones expected to be out by March-end. That’s when we will know how these fare against MediaTek’s own Dimensity 1200, Dimensity 1300 and its rival chipsets such as the Snapdragon 870 and Snapdragon 888.