Today MediaTek is announcing a refresh of the Dimensity 800 mid-range SoC – a new 5G chipset that had only been announced earlier this year at CES. The newer Dimensity 820 greatly improves the CPU performance of the chip, adds in an extra GPU core, and improves the ISP’s imaging capabilities with newer high-resolution sensors.
| MediaTek SoCs | |||
| SoC | Dimensity 1000(+) |
Dimensity 820 |
Dimensity 800 |
| CPU | 4x Cortex A77 @ 2.6GHz 4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz |
4x Cortex A76 @ 2.6GHz 4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz |
4x Cortex A76 @ 2.0GHz 4x Cortex A55 @ 2.0GHz |
| GPU | Mali-G77MP9 @ ? MHz |
Mali-G57MP5 @ ≤ 900 MHz |
Mali-G57MP4 @ ? MHz |
| APU / NPU / AI Proc. / Neural IP | 3rd gen APU 2 “big” + 3 “small” + 1 “tiny” 4.5TOPs total perf |
3rd Gen APU “four cores” big + small + tiny +2.4TOPs total perf |
|
| Memory | 4x 16b LPDDR4X | 2x 16b LPDDR4X @ 2133MHz | |
| ISP/Camera | 80MP or 32MP + 16MP |
1x 80MP or 2x 32+16MP |
1x 64MP or 2x 32+16MP |
| Encode/ Decode |
2160p60 H.264 & HEVC & AV1 (Decode) |
2160p30 H.264 & HEVC |
|
| Integrated Modem | 5G NR Sub-6 DL = 4600Mbps 200MHz 2CA, 256-QAM, 4×4 MIMO UL = 2500Mbps 200MHz 2CA, 256-QAM, 2×2 MIMO LTE Category 19 DL |
5G NR Sub-6 DL = 2300Mbps 100MHz 2CA, 256-QAM, 4×4 MIMO UL = 1250Mbps 100MHz 2CA, 256-QAM, 2×2 MIMO LTE Category ? DL |
|
| Connectivity | WiFi 6 (802.11ax) + Bluetooth 5.1 + Dual Band GNSS |
Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) + Bluetooth 5.1 |
|
| Mfc. Process | N7 |
The biggest upgrade on the new refreshed SoC is the clock frequencies of its four Cortex-A76 performance cores, which see a uptick from the original 2.0GHz frequency up to a much higher 2.6GHz target on the new chipset. That’s quite a substantial 30% clock uptick for an inter-generational update like this – which begs the question on whether this is a better binned part, a silicon respin, or outright a design update over the Dimensity 800.
Notably, MediaTek also upgraded the GPU specifications of the SoC, now disclosing a Mali-G57MP5, one more core than the MP4 configuration of the Dimensity 800. Again, we don’t know if this means that the original SoC had disabled GPU cores, or if this is an updated design with a bigger GPU.
The SoC’s ISP has been upgraded in performance to now handle single camera sensors up to 80MP resolution, an uptick over the 64MP advertised capabilities of the D800.
As with the whole new “Dimensity” SoC line-up, it’s differentiating feature that sets it apart from previous “Helio” SoCs is the fact that it supports 5G connectivity. Here the Dimensity 820, like the D800 before it, supports all communication standards from 2G to 5G NR sub-6GHz, only lacking mmWave connectivity (Which given MediaTek’s markets and price-point of this SoC, makes sense).
We still haven’t seen all that many devices with the Dimensity 800 – but the newer Dimensity 820 seems to be quite a bigger performance update, and we’re expecting more vendors to announce new phones with the SoC in the coming months.