MediaTek announced the Dimensity 9600M on September 15 along with the flagship Dimensity 9600 Pro chip. It's already powering the Vivo X500 and Oppo Find X10 in China. MediaTek claims the Dimensity 9600M shares features from its top-tier chip, but if you compare them closely, the Dimensity 9600M looks very similar to last year's Dimensity 9500. So, let's go ahead and understand what the Dimensity 9600M actually offers.
Is the Dimensity 9600M a Rebranded Dimensity 9500?
In terms of hardware, the answer is largely yes. I compared MediaTek's official spec sheet for the Dimensity 9600M and the Dimensity 9500 and everything looks identical. You get the same CPU, GPU, NPU, memory, storage, modem, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, camera and display support.
The leaked Geekbench listings also point in the same direction. They show that the MediaTek MT6993 chip ID is the same chip ID as the Dimensity 9500. The only difference, however, is the board identifier.
That said, MediaTek has not simply added a new label. On the Dimensity 9600M, you get the latest Dimensity Scheduling Engine 3.0, graphics framework used on the Dimensity 9600 Pro, support for newer on-device AI models and some upgraded AI features for the modem. Basically, it's the same chipset running a newer software and firmware stack.
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Dimensity 9600M: CPU
The Dimensity 9600M brings eight Arm C1-series CPU cores in a 1+3+4 layout. The single Arm C1-Ultra prime core is clocked at 4.21GHz, 3x Arm C1-Premium cores at 3.50GHz and 4x Arm C1-Pro cores at 2.70GHz. These are exactly the same frequencies as the Dimensity 9500 processor.
As for the fabrication process, the Dimensity 9600M is manufactured on TSMC's 3nm N3P node. For comparison, MediaTek has moved the Dimensity 9600 Pro to TSMC's 2nm N2P node and added two large Arm C2-Ultra cores running at 4.55GHz.
The CPU is still designed on Armv9.3 with SME2 instructions which speeds up calculations behind many on-device AI features.
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Dimensity 9600M: GPU
For graphics, the Dimensity 9600M uses the Arm Mali-G1 Ultra MC12 GPU, which is the same 12-core GPU found on the Dimensity 9500. It doesn't get the new 12-core Mali G2-Ultra NX GPU available on the Dimensity 9600 Pro. MediaTek says the G2-Ultra GPU offers 27% more peak performance than the G1 Ultra.
One big addition is the Dimensity Neural Graphics Architecture. According to MediaTek, the framework makes the CPU, GPU and NPU 990 work together on games using its HyperEngine software. With this software stack, MediaTek claims gaming frame rate up to 185fps and 120fps in ray traced scenes.
To give you some context, the Mali-G1 Ultra GPU was the strongest unit of the Dimensity 9500 in our testing. In fact, it scored higher than all smartphone GPUs in the market last year. However, it held only 45.7% stability in the GPU test, so sustained gaming performance will depend a lot on the cooling inside Dimensity 9600M phones.
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Dimensity 9600M: NPU
On the AI front, the Dimensity 9600M packs two NPUs. The larger NPU 990 powers heavy AI workloads while a smaller, low-powered NPU handles background tasks. Both NPUs were already present on the Dimensity 9500.
What new addition the Dimensity 9600M brings is AI software support. It can run the Gemini Nano 4 and Qwen 3.5 Omni 4B models locally and generate images at 4K resolution on-device. There is also a camera agent, which offers tips based on the scene. It also brings MediaTek's Agentic AI Engine, which is the same framework found on the Dimensity 9600 Pro.
However, don't expect the Dimensity 9600M to match the Dimensity 9600 Pro in AI performance. The flagship chip gets the latest NPU 1090, and it processes LLM prompts 51% faster during the prefill stage. It can also handle on-device AI models as large as 30 billion parameters.
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Dimensity 9600M Geekbench Score
Now, coming to the performance numbers. We have not benchmarked the Dimensity 9600M yet, but a few Geekbench listings have surfaced. A Vivo phone with the model number V2609A (Vivo X500 ) appeared on Geekbench 6 with the MT6993 chip and the Mali-G1 Ultra MC12 GPU. The Dimensity 9600M scored 2,832 in single-core and 7,925 in multi-core, if we go by the leaked listing.
| Geekbench 6 | Dimensity 9600M (Leaked) | Dimensity 9500 |
|---|---|---|
| Single-core | 2,832 | 3,315 |
| Multi-core | 7,925 | 9,914 |
When we tested the Dimensity 9500 on the Vivo X300 Pro, it achieved 3,315 points in the single-core test and 9,914 points in the multi-core test. In effect, our Dimensity 9500 result is about 17% higher in single-core and 25% higher in multi-core.
Since both chips share the same CPU cores and clock speeds, I would not read too much into this gap. These listings come from pre-production units running early software, so let's wait for our independent testing.
Meanwhile, the standard Oppo Find X10 phone also appeared on Geekbench 7 with the MT6993 chip. Here, the Dimensity 9600M scored 1,732 in single-core and 6,791 in multi-core. It looks like a throttled testing, so I would wait for more testing before drawing any conclusion.
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What About the Competition?
The Dimensity 9600M sits a notch below MediaTek's own flagship and it's also facing newer chips from rival companies. Qualcomm has launched the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chip as its standard flagship, and it's a 2nm chip. It also packs the next-gen Oryon CPU, with prime cores reaching 5.0GHz.
Like the Dimensity 9600M, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 has also been trimmed, compared to the flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. That said, the CPU is the same one Qualcomm uses on its top chip, while the Dimensity 9600M packs last year's CPU fabbed on an older node.
Finally, Apple is still setting the high bar for CPU performance. In our Apple A20 Pro benchmark on the iPhone 18 Pro Max, the chip scored 4,707 in Geekbench 6 single-core and 12,598 in multi-core. It's about 42% higher in single-core and 27% higher in multi-core than our Dimensity 9500 result.
Dimensity 9600M Specs
| Specification | MediaTek Dimensity 9600M |
|---|---|
| Process Node | TSMC's 3nm N3P |
| CPU | Octa-core, Arm C1-series CPU (1+3+4) |
| CPU Cores | 1x Arm C1-Ultra at 4.21GHz + 3x Arm C1-Premium at 3.50GHz + 4x Arm C1-Pro at 2.70GHz |
| GPU | Arm Mali-G1 Ultra MC12 |
| NPU | MediaTek NPU 990 and Super Efficient NPU |
| ISP | Up to 320MP sensor, 8K 60fps, 4K 120fps with EIS, 4K 60fps cinematic mode |
| Storage and Memory | UFS 4.1 (4-lane), LPDDR5X up to 10,667Mbps |
| Modem | MediaTek 3GPP Release 17 5G modem, Sub-6GHz, up to 7.4Gbps peak download speed |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0 |
In simple terms, the Dimensity 9600M is last year's flagship chip that MediaTek has updated on the software side. The underlying hardware is exactly the same. The new additions are Dimensity Scheduling Engine 3.0, the Neural Graphics Architecture for gaming and support for newer on-device AI models.
To be fair, this does not make the Dimensity 9600M a weak chip. The Dimensity 9500 still holds up well in 2026 and its Mali-G1 Ultra GPU delivered the best graphics results we saw last year. The major concern is heat because the Dimensity 9500 could not hold peak performance for much longer.
Now, with the 9600 branding, most people will expect the Dimensity 9600M to be a close sibling of the Dimensity 9600 Pro, but in hardware terms, it's the same chip as the Dimensity 9500. In some ways, it's similarly positioned as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 chip, which sits below the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
To sum up, you should pick a Dimensity 9600M phone only if it's priced significantly lower than Dimensity 9600 Pro and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 phones. And if you do buy one, make sure the phone has a large vapour chamber because the thermal behaviour of this chipset is well known.
