What is the MediaTek Dimensity 8300?

The MediaTek Dimensity 8300 is the latest chipset to hit the smartphone market, with the maker’s eyes set firmly on the premium smartphone market.

It’s not quite as powerful as the flagship-level Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 or MediaTek Dimensity 9300, but the Dimensity 8300 does have a lot going for it. Not only is it more powerful and battery efficient, but the chipset is one of very few to boast on-device GenAI capabilities.

Here’s everything you need to know about the MediaTek Dimensity 8300. 

What is the MediaTek Dimensity 8300?

The Dimensity 8300 is the latest premium chipset from chipmaker MediaTek, improving on the performance of this year’s Dimensity 8200. It’s not the flagship chipset – that’d be the 9300 – but the 8300 is still a premium chipset focused on the premium (£500-700) market.

The new chipset, like the flagship processors from MediaTek and competitor Qualcomm, focuses on Generative AI capabilities alongside the usual boost to CPU and GPU performance. 

What’s new with the MediaTek Dimensity 8300?

MediaTek has promised an all-round upgrade to the Dimensity 8300, offering not only performance boosts and improved battery efficiency but a focus on AI and on-device Generative AI capabilities at that. It’s unique as, unlike Qualcomm, it’s the only non-flagship chipset to offer GenAI support. 

Let’s delve a little deeper into what’s new with the Dimensity 8300. 

GenAI support

The headline feature, as teased, is support for on-device Generative AI capabilities. It’s not quite as powerful as the flagship chipsets from MediaTek and Qualcomm, but it can support LLMs (large language models) at up to 10 billion operations per second. 

That’s roughly a 3.3x boost to AI performance compared to its predecessor, and should allow 8300-equipped phones to run GenAI tasks like photo expansion and text generation without a need for an internet connection. That vastly improves when and where you can use it and provides a significant privacy boost by negating the need to upload data to the cloud for processing.

The question is whether we’ll see manufacturers build GenAI tools directly into the OS, or whether it’ll be third-party devs that take advantage of the new hardware on offer. It’s simply too early to say at this stage. 

Performance boost

The Dimensity 8300 boasts a pretty impressive year-on-year performance boost compared to the Dimensity 8200. That includes the introduction of the new Armv9 CPU architecture that the company claims delivers a 20% boost to CPU performance, while the GPU sees rather incredible gains of 60%. 

Combined, MediaTek claims that tasks like cold loading an app (opening an app for the first time) is 17% faster, while launching an app from standby is now 47% faster. 

That doesn’t mean it’s any less power efficient either; in fact, MediaTek claims there’s a 30% improvement in CPU efficiency while the GPU is 55% more efficient, even at peak performance. 

That should hopefully translate to solid battery life even when gaming or running other hardware-intensive tasks, but that’ll, of course, also depend on other factors like screen tech and battery capacity. Still, it’s a great step forward for the premium chipset. 

Improved video capabilities

The upgraded chipset doesn’t just focus on sheer performance and AI capabilities. There are also improvements to camera performance with the introduction of the new 14-bit HDR-ISP, which essentially allows smartphones to record better quality 4K@60fps HDR video. In fact, the flagship-level IQ now allows for simultaneous 4K HDR video capture from two lenses. 

Not only that, but it should be more efficient – up to 10% more efficient, apparently – and it boasts improved video noise reduction and an AI-powered Colour Content Smart ISP that should help deliver accurate colour.  

As with battery life, the camera quality of specific Dimensity 8300 phones will still differ depending on the lenses that manufacturers use. Still, it’s good to see that MediaTek is providing the necessary tools.