Summary

MediaTek’s Dimensity 9600 Pro is specified as an 8-core 2nm smartphone chip design with Arm C2 CPUs, a Mali-G2 Ultra NX GPU, dual NPUs and support for LPDDR6 and UFS 5.0.

MediaTek has specified the Dimensity 9600 Pro as an 8-core smartphone chip built around a 2nm design, Arm’s C2 CPU cores and an Arm Mali-G2 Ultra NX GPU. The platform also combines two neural-processing units (NPUs), a new imaging architecture, LPDDR6 memory support, UFS 5.0 storage and an integrated 5G Advanced modem.

The product page presents the processor as a platform for on-device generative and “agentic” AI, gaming, high-resolution imaging and faster data movement. Its performance comparisons are MediaTek’s own figures against the previous-generation Dimensity flagship processor.

Contents

A three-tier all-big-core CPU

The Dimensity 9600 Pro uses a 2+3+3 CPU layout: two Arm C2-Ultra processors with 2MB of L2 cache each, three Arm C2-Pro processors with 1MB of L2 cache each, and three more C2-Pro processors with 512KB of L2 cache each. The chip has 16MB of L3 cache and 10MB of system-level cache.

MediaTek describes this as its fourth-generation all-big-core CPU. In practical terms, all eight listed CPU cores are performance-class cores, with different core and cache configurations used for different workloads. The company says the design produces a 21% larger L2 cache system than its predecessor.

MediaTek reports 17% faster single-core CPU performance with 37% greater power efficiency, and 15% faster multi-core performance with 61% greater power efficiency. The page also lists first-wave support for LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 storage. LPDDR6 10667 is specified alongside LPDDR5X 10667, while the company says LPDDR6 can raise effective memory bandwidth by 33% at the same frequency and UFS 5.0 can deliver twice the read and write performance of the previous generation.

Dedicated hardware for on-device AI

The processor’s dual-NPU arrangement combines the MediaTek NPU 1090 with Super Efficient NPU 2.0. MediaTek positions the NPU 1090 for demanding generative-AI and agentic-AI workloads, while the second NPU provides a lower-power domain for continuous background activity.

The company says the NPU 1090 delivers twice the previous generation’s INT4 computing capability, 55% greater token generation per watt and 51% faster large-language-model prefill performance. INT4 is a four-bit numerical format commonly used to reduce the memory and computing cost of AI models, while prefill refers to the stage in which a model processes the initial input before generating a response.

The chip also includes upgraded hardware for key-value-cache compression, described by MediaTek as a way to reduce the memory footprint of language models. The page lists support for edge-trained language models and mixture-of-experts inference on the device. These features are paired with the Dimensity Agentic AI Engine and the Dimensity Scheduling Engine 3.0 to coordinate workloads across the CPU, GPU and NPUs.

Graphics, cameras and connectivity

The Arm Mali-G2 Ultra NX GPU supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and MediaTek’s direct GPU–NPU synchronisation. MediaTek reports 27% greater peak graphics performance, 24% better power efficiency at peak performance and up to 18% faster ray tracing than the previous-generation flagship processor. The platform is specified to support native gameplay above 185 frames per second and optical multi-material ray tracing.

For cameras, the chip supports image sensors up to 200 megapixels, 8K video capture at 60 frames per second, 4K HDR video at 60fps, 4K recording at 120fps with electronic image stabilisation and 4K slow-motion capture at 240fps. Its imaging pipeline links the image signal processor and NPU for functions such as subject tracking, semantic video processing and HDR capture. MediaTek lists 60fps continuous subject-focus tracking and 17-stop HDR video capture using LOFIC and UFCC technologies.

The integrated 5G Advanced modem supports five-carrier aggregation across up to 350MHz of sub-6GHz spectrum, with a specified downlink rate above 7.4Gbps. The chip also supports Wi-Fi 7 with triple-band, triple-concurrency operation and a listed rate of up to 7.3Gbps, along with Bluetooth 6.2 and dual Bluetooth engines. MediaTek’s specifications include NavIC support among the listed satellite-navigation systems.

The product page does not identify the first smartphones using the Dimensity 9600 Pro, or provide a release date, price or market-specific availability. Actual phone performance will also depend on implementation factors such as cooling, software and memory configuration.

Sources