HiSilicon Kirin 9000 vs MediaTek Dimensity 7050

HiSilicon Kirin 9000

The HiSilicon Kirin 9000 is an ARM based high-end octa-core SoC for smartphones and tablet, which was introduced with the Huawei P40 Pro. It integrates eight CPU cores in three clusters. A single high performance ARM Cortex-A77 cores with up to 3.13 GHz for fast single core performance. Three more performance cores (same Cortex-A77 architecture) with up to 2.54 GHz and four efficiency cores based on the ARM Cortex-A55 architecture with up to 2.05 GHz. All 8 cores can be used at once (big.LITTLE).

The integrated graphics card is using the Mali-G78 architecture and features all 24 cores (G78MP24).

For AI acceleration (NPU), the Kirin 9000 integrates the Da Vinci Architecture 2.0 (2 * Ascend Lite and 1 * Ascend Tiny). Huawei specifies 8 MB of system cache (most likely shared for CPU, GPU and AI) and can access LPDDR4X and LPDDR5 main memory. The integrated 5G modem supports SA&NSA, Sub-6G and mmWave. WiFi 6 including VHT160 and Bluetooth 5.2 are also integrated in the chip.

The CPU performance is in the top tier of mobile SoCs of 2020 and slightly above the Snapdragon 865+ and on a level with the older Apple A13 Bionic SoC.

The Kirin 9000 is produced at TSMC in the modern 5nm process.

MediaTek Dimensity 7050

The Mediatek Dimensity 7050 (Mediatek MT8791N/TN)  is a mid-range ARM SoC (system-on-a-chip) that can be used in both smartphones and tablets (mainly Android). The SoC integrates two ARM Cortex-A78 cores with up to 2.6 GHz for demanding tasks and six power-saving ARM Cortex-A55 cores with clock rates of up to 2 GHz. The specifications are identical to the old Dimensity 1080.

The chip has an integrated sub-6 GHz 5G modem including dual-SIM support that can reach a maximum download speed of up to 2.77 Gbit/s. Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) is supported as well as Bluetooth 5.2.

The memory controller copes with LPDDR4x or LPDDR5 working memory as well as UFS 3.1 mass storage. As an integrated graphics card, the SoC uses the ARM Mali-G68 MC4, which supports displays with 120 Hz as well as HDR10+ at a maximum resolution of 2,520 x 1,440 pixels.

The MediaTek Dimensity 7050 is still manufactured in 6 nm.