MediaTek is hard at work on its upcoming Dimensity 9600 processor, whose leaked Geekbench scores already show a promising bump in performance. But thanks to a new leak, we have found that the chipmaker is also working on the mid-range Dimensity 8600 chipset with major performance improvements.
MediaTek's Next Midrange Chipset Could Match the Flagships
This detail comes from a well-known leaker, Digital Chat Station on Weibo. He shared a post spilling the beans on the Dimensity 8600, which is set to bring some massive generational performance improvements, and it will be based on a 3nm fabrication process. DCS also mentioned that it will have a new architecture, bringing some serious enhancements over the current Dimensity 8500 chipset.
For context, the Dimensity 8500 is a 4nm-based SoC that already offers high-end gaming performance as tested in our Motorola Edge 70 Pro review. It is almost on par with the Snapdragon 8 Elite. This means that we can expect the Dimensity 8600 to perform somewhere along the lines of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in comparison. But this is purely speculation on our part.
While details of which smartphones will debut with this new powerful midrange SoC are scarce, it is rumoured that Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Honor, and their sub-brands are evaluating new devices to be used with the Dimensity 8600 processor, and they will launch by the end of 2026 or early 2027.
These phones are also expected to feature battery capacity that will surpass 10,000 mAh, which is currently the highest seen on any smartphone, with the likes of the Realme P4 Power. While we wait for more details about the chipset to come out, it will be interesting to see how it fares against the MediaTek Dimensity 9600, which is rumoured to power the flagship Oppo Find X10 Pro and other devices.
