MediaTek Unveils Dimensity 9400+ Flagship With AI And Gaming Boosts For Android
MediaTek has a new flagship chip for Android phones, the Dimensity 9400+. The plus-designated chip arrives six months after MediaTek unveiled its non-plus Dimensity 9400 silicon and is mostly an iterative upgrade with a clock speed boost, though it does also boast a couple of noteworthy features that can purportedly boost AI workloads and gaming.
The Dimensity 9400+ sticks with the same all-big-core design of its predecessor featuring a single Arm Cortex-X925 core clocked at up to 3.73GHz and with 2MB of L2 cache, three Cortex-X4 cores with 1MB of L2 cache, and four Cortex-A720 cores with 512KB of L2 cache (there's no mention of clock speeds on the X4 or A720). As a whole, the package features 12MB of L3 cache and 10MB of SLC cache.
All of those metrics are identical to its non-plus predecessor except for the Cortex-X925's top clock speed, which is up from 3.62GHz on the previous part. And going down the list of specs, most everything else appears unchanged, including LPDDR5X-10667 memory support, Wi-Fi 7 connectivity with a peak 7.3Gbps data rate, support for UFS 4 + MCQ storage, and so forth.
Other than the clock speed bump, what constitutes the plus designation? Two things.
First, a protip: Don't bother squinting at the above infographic and instead do yourself a solid by clicking to enlarge it. Doing so will give you a better view of the touted upgrades, the first of which is the new MediaTeck Frame Rate Converter (MFRC) 2.0+. According to MediaTek, this can "double the effective FPS" while at the same time enhancing power efficiency by up to 40%.
It remains to be seen how widespread the claimed performance gain will spreads its wings. The only clue is MediaTek saying it applies to "popular titles" and is the result of "continuous, deep collaboration with game developers." Make of that what you will.
The other ballyhooed enhancement to the Dimensity 9400+ relates to AI. It's still rocking the same 8th generation NPU 890 as the regular 9400 SoC, but according to MediaTek, the addition of Speculative Decoding+ (SpD+) turbocharges agentic AI performance to the tune of 20%.
"The MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ will make it easier to deliver innovative, personalized AI experiences on-device, combined with enhanced overall performance to ensure your device can handle all tasks with ease," said JC Hsu, Corporate Senior Vice President at MediaTek. "We are working closely with developers and manufacturers to continue building a robust ecosystem of AI applications and other features that will bring a number of speed and privacy benefits to consumers."
MediaTek says the first phones to features its new Dimensity 9400+ will launch to market this month.
