The smartphone chip battle between Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Apple is more intense than ever before. All three have made huge progress with their high-end chips in recent years, particularly MediaTek, which is emerging as a strong competitor to the other two. Its latest Dimensity 9500 chip goes neck-to-neck with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and Apple A19 Pro on benchmarks.
Here, we’ll look at the benchmark data and real-world differences to find out who has the edge over the other two chipsets.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 vs Dimensity 9500 vs Apple A19 Pro: benchmark comparison
Note: Devices that have been used for benchmark testing are Honor Magic 8 (Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), Vivo X300 Pro (Dimensity 9500), and iPhone 17 Pro (Apple A19 Pro).
Geekbench score
Apple still leads the single-core chart with 3,784 points, the most for a smartphone chipset, but the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with 3,634 points is not very much behind. The Dimensity 9500 sits behind the two with 3,177 points.
The multi-core score is an entirely different story, as the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 leads the race with 10,813 points. This is about 11% higher than the Dimensity 9500 (9701 points) and Apple A19 Pro (9752 points).
In short, the Apple A19 Pro leads the single-core chart, but the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 makes a strong comeback in the multi-core territory. The Dimensity 9500 lags behind the two, but the gap has significantly narrowed over the years.
| Geekbench 6 | Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 | Dimensity 9500 | Apple A19 Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single core | 3,634 | 3,177 | 3,784 |
| Multi core | 10,813 | 9,701 | 9,752 |
AnTuTu score
On the AnTuTu v11 platform, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 gets about 4.16 million total score. The Dimensity 9500 is a little behind with a 4 million score, while the Apple A19 Pro is nowhere near either of them, scoring about 2.43 million points.
There are several reasons for this massive difference between the Apple A19 Pro and the other two chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek. One is that AnTuTu uses different testing methods for iOS and Android devices. Secondly, the A19 Pro has been tested on AnTuTu v10, while the Snapdragon and Dimensity chips have been tested on a newer AnTuTu v11 platform.
| Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 | Dimensity 9500 | Apple A19 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu score | 4,166,339 | 4,011,932 | 2,431,628 |
| CPU | 1,213,845 | 1,043,247 | 832,220 |
| GPU | 1,468,351 | 1,510,982 | 914,932 |
| Memory | 570,553 | 667,254 | 288,352 |
| UX | 913,590 | 790,449 | 396,125 |
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 vs Dimensity 9500 vs Apple A19 Pro: spec sheet and key differences
| Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 | Dimensity 9500 | Apple A19 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Announced | September 2025 | September 2025 | September 2025 |
| Process node | TSMC’s 3nm (N3P) | TSMC’s 3nm (N3P) | TSMC’s 3nm (N3P) |
| CPU cores | 8-core | 8-core | 6-core |
| CPU cores | 2 x 4.61 GHz — Oryon (3rd gen) 6 x 3.63 GHz — Oryon (3rd gen) | 1 x 4.21 GHz — C1-Ultra 3 x 3.5 GHz —C1-Premium 4 x 2.7 GHz — C1-Pro | 2 x 4.26 — performance cores 4 x 2.6 — efficiency cores |
| GPU | Adreno 840 Ray tracing support Snapdragon Elite Gaming features | Mali-G1 Ultra MP12 Ray tacing support MediaTek HyperEngine Gaming Technology | 6-core Apple GPU Ray tracing support |
| NPU | Qualcomm Hexagon NPU | MediaTek NPU 990 | 16-core Neural Engine |
| Memory | LPDDR5X, up to 5.3 GHz | LPDDR5X, up to 5.3 GHz | LPDDR5X |
| Storage | UFS 4.1 | UFS 4.1 | NVMe storage |
| Camera | Qualcomm Spectra Triple ISP (20-bit) up to 320MP single camera up to 8K video recording supports real-time semantic segmentation | MediaTek Imagiq 1190 ISP up to 320MP single camera up to 8K video recording supports real-time semantic segmentation | up to 48MP camera up to 8K video recording supports real-time semantic segmentation |
| Connectivity | Snapdragon X85 5G modem Download speed: 12.5 Gbps (peak) Upload speed: 3.7 Gbps (peak) Wi-Fi 7 (peak speed: 5.8 Gbps) Bluetooth 6.0 | 3GPP Release-17 5G modem Maximum speed: 7.4 Gbps Wi-Fi 7 (peak speed: 7.3 Gbps) Bluetooth 6.0 | Snapdragon X80 5G modem Wi-Fi 7 Bluetooth 6.0 |
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Dimensity 9500, and Apple A19 Pro were announced in September, built using the same TSMC’s 3nm (N3P) process node. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 features eight third-gen Oryon CPU cores, with two of them running at 4.61 GHz and the remaining six at 3.63 GHz.
The Dimensity 9500 uses the latest ARM cores, featuring one C1-Ultra at 4.21 GHz, three C1-Premium at 3.5 GHz, and four C1-Pro at 2.7 GHz. Unlike the two, the Apple A19 Pro features six CPU cores, with two performance cores at 4.26 GHz and six performance cores at 2.6 GHz.
As for the graphics needs, the Snapdragon chip relies on the newly announced Adreno 840 with improved ray tracing capabilities, better performance, and power efficiency. The 12-core Mali-G1 Ultra on the Dimensity 9500 and the 6-core Apple GPU on the A19 Pro also bring substantial gaming enhancements.
The flagship chips also bring better on-device AI capabilities. They use the same LPDDR5x memory, although the storage type differs: UFS 4.1 on Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and NVMe on Apple A19 Pro. The connectivity part brings notable differences, with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 featuring the highest peak download speed of 12.5 Gbps. The Dimensity 9500 makes a comeback by offering the highest Wi-Fi speed (7.3 Gbps). The Apple A19 Pro uses a Snapdragon X80 5G modem, which was used on last year’s Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Comments