MediaTek Dimensity 1200 Vs Qualcomm Snapdragon 888: Battle Of Flagships

MediaTek has been a little aggressive lately, launching many upper mid-range and flagship SoCs for smartphones that can now go head-to-head with Qualcomm's best products.

The MediaTek Dimensity 1200 is one such product, which is currently the flagship offering from the company. So, how does it perform in the real-world and fares against the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC?

Performance Comparison

The MediaTek Dimensity 1200 is undoubtedly the most powerful processor from the company and is also one of the first processors from the brand capable of reaching up to 3GHz clock speed. This processor is built using 6nm fabrication, which also makes this the most efficient high-performance processor from MediaTek.

In comparison, the Snapdragon 888 SoC has a slightly lower CPU clock speed of 2.84GHz. However, the primary CPU core on the Snapdragon 888 SoC is based on ARM Cortex-X1 architecture, while Dimensity 1200's primary core is based on Arm Cortex-A78. Hence, despite the higher clock speed on the Dimensity 1200, the Snapdragon 888 will offer better performance.

The multi-core performance of the Snapdragon 888 and the Dimensity 1200 SoC is likely to remain similar, as both processors use a 1+3+4 CPU configuration, with a single high-performance core, three medium performance cores, and four efficiency cores.

Coming to the graphics part, the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 is equipped with the Arm Mali-G77 MC9, while Qualcomm's counterpart uses the Qualcomm Adreno 660 GPU. On paper, Qualcomm's offering has an upper hand. However, the performance of the graphics also depends on the cooling system implemented on a specific device.

Display And Camera

The MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC can drive a display with up to 168Hz refresh rate at FHD+ resolution. The Snapdragon 888, on the other hand, can support up to 144Hz refresh rate at QHD+ resolution. Hence, they seem to offer similar performance when it comes to screen resolution and refresh rate.

The Dimensity can support up to a single 200MP camera, and even the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 can support up to a 200MP camera. So, we could expect to see phones powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC with up to 108MP cameras, given it is the highest resolution camera available for smartphones.

Wireless Networking And Connectivity

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 and the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 are 5G-ready processors. The Snapdragon 888 can achieve up to a peak download speed of 7.5 Gbps, while the Dimensity 1200 maxes out at 4.7Gbps. Do note that, no matter the processor, you won't be able to get over 1Gbps download speed on a 5G network, unless you stand next to a 5G modem.

Both processors do support Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6. However, only the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 supports Wi-Fi 6E, which offers better download and upload speeds when compared to Wi-Fi 6.

Which One Is The Best?

Unlike building a custom PC, you won't get an option to choose a chipset when you buy a smartphone. You can either get a phone powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 or the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC, and they will never be alike. Given the prices of the phones powered by the Dimensity 1000+, the phones based on the Dimensity 1200 should also cost a little less than the phones powered by the Snapdragon 888 SoC.

Yes, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 is slightly superior to the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 on paper. However, a user buying a phone powered by either of these processors will have a good smartphone user-experience, at least for a year.