MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 AP enjoys pricing advantage over rival Snapdragon chipset

Two powerful new application processors are expected to be unveiled soon. MediaTek's Dimensity 9400 and Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could both be introduced as soon as next month. Both will be built on TSMC's second-generation 3nm process node  (N3E) and each silicon wafer that is sliced and diced will cost MediaTek and Qualcomm $20,000 and up. The higher the price of the wafers, the higher the price of the chipsets.

On China's Weibo social media platform, leaker Digital Chat Station posted information about how much each SoC might cost smartphone manufacturers. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which is the application processor (AP) most likely to be found powering late 2024-2025 Android flagship phones such as the Galaxy S25 Ultra, is said to be priced at $190 each. That is 21% lower than the $240 price tag that leaker Ice Universe cited for the component earlier this month.

It is hard to take Digital Chat Station's Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 pricing seriously since, at $190, it would be $10  cheaper than the $200 price for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 AP. The combination of the N3E second-gen 3nm process node and the use of Qualcomm's custom homegrown Oryon cores (replacing the ARM cores traditionally used) would make Ice Universe's more expensive price forecast more likely to be accurate.

As for the Dimensity 9400, Digital Chat Station says that its pricing will be a more affordable $155. The price gap between the Dimensity 9400 and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could lead some phone manufacturers to use MediaTek's AP. Last year, the Dimensity 9300 AP powered the Vivo X100 range and generated over $1 billion in revenue for MediaTek. The Dimensity 9400 AP will be powering the Vivo X200 line and Oppo's Find X8 series among other devices.

There even has been speculation about Samsung using Dimensity SOCs for future flagship phones. But considering that the South Korean phone manufacturer signed a multi-year contract with Qualcomm last February to continue receiving Snapdragon chipsets, it seems unlikely that Samsung would switch to MediaTek for its flagship devices despite the expected price differential.

The Dimensity 9400 is expected to be equipped with one Cortex-X925 CPU core running as fast as 3.36 GHz, three Cortex-X4 CPU cores with a clock speed up to 2.80 GHz, and four Cortex-A725 CPU cores running as fast as 2.10 GHz. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will have two custom performance Oryon CPU cores clocked at 4 GHz along with six custom efficiency Oryon CPU cores with a clock speed up to 2.80 GHz.