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Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 8300 Ultra: benchmarks and key differences

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra are high-performance chipsets for powering flagship devices. The former was announced in October last year, and the latter was announced a month later. Both chips have eight cores and are fabricated on TSMC’s 4nm process, although many critical differences set them apart.

In this post, we’ll compare the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Dimensity 8300 Ultra on various benchmarks and explore the key differences between them to find out how the two chips stack up against each other.

Let’s begin with the spec sheet comparison:

	Snapdragon 8 Gen 3	Dimensity 8300 Ultra
Release date	October 2023	November 2023
Process node	4nm	4nm
Manufacturer	TSMC	TSMC
Cores	8	8
CPU architecture	1 x Cortex-X4 @ 3.3 GHz 3 x Cortex-A720 @ 3.15 GHz 2 x Cortex-A720 @ 2.96 GHz 2 x Cortex-A520 @ 2.27 GHz	1 x Cortex-A715 @ 3.35 GHz 3 x Cortex-A715 @ 3.2 GHz 4 x Cortex-A510 @ 2.2 GHz
GPU	Adreno 750 770 MHz frequency Snapdragon Elite Gaming Hardware Accelerated Ray Tracing	ARM Mali-G615 MC6 MediaTek Apaptive Game Technology 2.0
NPU	Hexagon NPU	MediaTek APU 780
Camera	Qualcomm 18-bit Spectra Triple ISP 200MP single camera 108MP camera with ZSL 64MP+36MP dual cameras with ZSL 36MP+36MP+36MP triple cameras with ZSL *ZSL = Zero Shutter Lag	MediaTek 14-bit Imagiq 980 ISP 320MP single camera 32MP+32MP+32MP triple cameras
Memory	LPDDR5X RAM UFS 4.0 storage	LPDDR5X RAM UFS 4.0 storage
Media decode	H.264, H.265, AV1, VP8, VP9	H.264, H.265, AV1, VP9
Connectivity	Snapdragon X75 5G modem Downlink: 10 Gbps Uplink: 3.5 Gbps Wi-Fi 7 support Bluetooth 5.4	MediaTek 5G modem Downlink: 5.14 Gbps Wi-Fi 6E support Bluetooth 5.4

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 8300 Ultra(Geekbench)...Geekbench evaluates a device’s performance through a series of tests designed around practical scenarios. The tests include image processing, compression (text & image), speech recognition, and PDF rendering, to name a few.

In Geekbench 6 tests, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3-powered OnePlus 12 has scored 2,130 points in the single-core test and 6,175 points in the multi-core test. In contrast, the Dimensity 8300 Ultra-powered Poco X6 Pro has 1,256 single-core score and 4,207 multi-core score.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip is significantly better than the Dimensity 8300 ultra, as far as the Geekbench scores are concerned. The scores are almost 1.5 times better than the Dimensity chip.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 8300 Ultra(AnTuTu)...AnTuTu is a popular benchmarking platform that runs a device through a series of tests that measure different aspects of its performance, such as CPU, GPU, memory, and UX. The combined score represents the overall performance of a device.

The Dimensity 8300 Ultra has scored 1,301,564 points, whereas the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has taken a clear lead with a total AnTuTu score of 1,753,326, which is more than 30% as compared to the Dimensity chip. Even the individual CPU, GPU, memory, and UX performance scores for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 are better than those of the other chip.

So, Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has outperformed the Dimensity 8300 Ultra with significant differences on benchmarks. But what’s causing a big performance gap? Let’s look at the critical differences between the two below for better understanding.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 8300 Ultra(Key Differences)...Both chips have eight cores and are built on TSMC’s 4nm process node. However, they have different cores and core clusters. For instance, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 features one Cortex-X4 prime core, which offers great performance and is highly efficient but is absent on the Dimensity 8300 Ultra. Rather, the Dimensity chip relies on four Cortex-A715 cores for performance, and the other four are Cortex-A510 power-efficiency cores.

In addition to a Cortex-X4, the Snapdragon chip has five Cortex-A720 high-performance cores and two Cortex-A520 power-efficiency cores. Clearly, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has the advantage of higher-performance cores with better power efficiency, which should give a significant performance advantage.

Both chips have their version of GPUs: Adreno 750 on the Snapdragon chip and Mali-G615 MC6 on the MediaTek chip. The former does have better performance retention and supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing technology. So, you’ll have a better gaming experience on devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 than Dimensity 8300 Ultra.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 has an X75 5G modem with 10 Gbps peak download speed, while Dimensity 8300 Ultra’s modem only has a peak download speed of 5.14 Gbps. Also, the former chip supports Wi-Fi 7, which is lacking on the other chip.

The two chips also differ in camera capabilities. The Snapdragon chip gets you an 18-bit Image Signal Processor (ISP), whereas the Dimensity chip has a 14-bit ISP. However, the latter supports a 320MP single camera (vs. 200MP on the Snapdragon chip), but it’s not a big thing, to be honest.

Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 vs Dimensity 8300 Ultra(Verdict)...Both Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Dimensity 8300 Ultra are high-performance chipsets. However, the former chip has significantly better CPU and GPU performance. So, for gaming and high-performance tasks such as video editing, you’d want to get a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 device. However, for light usage, both the chips would work absolutely fine. In fact, you’d be able to save some money by getting a Dimensity 8300 Ultra device, but only if high-end gaming and video editing are not your thing.

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