Any links to online stores should be assumed to be affiliates. The company or PR agency provides all or most review samples. They have no control over my content, and I provide my honest opinion.
MediaTek is unrelenting when it comes to launching new chipsets. It is more or less a monthly occurrence for them now, with the MediaTek Dimensity 720 launching on the 23rd of July and now the announcement of another affordable 5G chipset the MediaTek Dimensity 800U.
Being called the Dimensity 800U it would be logical to assume that the new chipset is a slight variation of the existing Dimensity 800, but MediaTek like to do things their own way, this is instead an overclocked version of the Dimensity 720.
MediaTek Dimensity 800U vs 720
The new MediaTek Dimensity 800U adopts a 2×6 design, the same as the Dimensity 720, using two ARM Cortex-A76 CPU cores and six ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores.
To the best of my knowledge, the only difference between the two chipsets is the frequency of the A76 cores.
- The MediaTek Dimensity 800U clocks the two Cortex A76 at 2.4GHz
- The MediaTek Dimensity 720 clocks the two Cortex A76 at 2.0GHz
- With a 20% increase in frequencies, this should offer quite a bit more improvement in performance.
GPU differences
According to MediaTek, the Dimensity 800U features up to 11% faster CPU performance and 28% faster GPU performance compared to the Dimensity 720. However, both these chipsets have the same ARM Mali-G57MC3.
This would imply that the GPU has had its frequency increased, but a 28% improvement just from a bump in frequencies sounds a bit unlikely.
What’s the same
Everything else is basically the same with:
- 6x ARM Cortex-A55 CPU cores at 2.0GHz
- GPU design is the same with Mali-G57 MC3
- Up to 12GB of LPDDR4X @ 2133MHz
- UFS 2.2 – Interestingly it is only MediaTek that seems to use 2.2 in their spec sheets, it is normally UFS 2.1
- The modem download speed of the 720 is listed as 2.77Gbps, but my PR contact informed me it was 2.34Gbps which is the same as the Dimensity 800U
The modem architecture for the Dimensity 720 is the same as that of the Dimensity 800. However, to better meet the demands of the target segment, maximum throughput has been reduced in the 720 to 2.34Gbps, around 15 percent lower than the 800.
MediaTek Dimensity 800U vs 800 vs 820
Both the Dimensity 800 and 820 use a 4×4 design with 4x Arm Cortex-A76 then 4x Arm Cortex-A55.
- Dimensity 800 – 4x Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2GHz
- Dimensity 820 – 4X Arm Cortex-A76 @ up to 2.6GHz
So, the Dimensity 800U should offer superior single-core performance than the Dimensity 800, but then fall behind on the multi-core performance.
Both the Dimensity 800 and 820 have superior GPUs with:
- Dimensity 800U – 3X Arm Mali-G57 GPU
- Dimensity 800 – 4X Arm Mali-G57 GPU
- Dimensity 820 – 5X Arm Mali-G57 GPU
Phones with MediaTek Dimensity 800U
Nothing has been announced yet, but you can bet it will be either Realme, OPPO or Xiaomi that will be the first company to introduce a phone with the new Dimensity 800U.
MediaTek Dimensity Phones Outside of China
This is the fourth 5G Dimensity chipset launched this year, and two last year, yet not a single phone has been released outside China with a Dimensity chipset.
It has been previously announced that phones featuring MediaTek Dimensity chipsets will start shipping beyond Mainland China in the third quarter of this year.
MediaTek Dimensity 800U vs Dimensity 800 & 720 Specification Table
[table id=278 /]
MediaTek Dimensity 800U Benchmarks
No benchmarks are available yet
The below table shows the current Geekbench results for the MediaTek Dimensity 720 compared to other chipsets, the MediaTek Dimensity 800U result is a guess based on the above data.
[table id=279 /]
