MediaTek has yet to announce its next-gen Dimensity 9600 mobile SoC. However, given Qualcomm's extractive pricing regime for its upcoming bleeding-edge Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 chips, a number of smartphone OEMs, especially in Asia, are increasingly turning to the Dimensity 9600 as a viable contender to Qualcomm's AP-related offerings.

According to the Weibo-based tipster, Digital Chat Station, instead of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro:

"Ahem, if OV's next-generation Pro Max is confirmed, it will most likely be powered by the TSMC Dimensity 9600 series N2p chip. The SM8975-Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen6 Pro is only a high-end imaging flagship [not simple] (speculation)." [Translated via Google]

We noted earlier today that Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro chip will come with some exclusive features such as a faster GPU , LPDDR6 RAM, and UFS 5.0 support , albeit with an eye-watering price tag.

While the report about Qualcomm's upcoming bleeding-edge chip had taken pains to note that the AP's eye-watering price tag was not expected to drive away customers , Digital Chat Station appears to be disagreeing with that inference, arguing that Oppo and Vivo would likely opt for the Dimensity 9600 chip instead of the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro for their highest-end flagship smartphones.

For the benefit of those who might not be aware, MediaTek's Dimensity 9600 chip is expected to leverage TSMC's N2P lithography process, which provides a 5 percent extra performance boost relative to the vanilla N2 process that will be used by Apple for its upcoming A20 and A20 Pro chips .

Of course, the Dimensity 9600 chip would require every ounce of a possible efficiency edge over Apple's upcoming A20-series chips, especially as the current-gen Dimensity 9500 chip contains no efficiency cores , which has worsened its power consumption metrics, while Apple optimized the architecture of its current-gen A19-series chips to allow them to deliver a 29 percent performance boost at no additional power consumption relative to the A18-series chips.

The Dimensity 9600 chip is also expected to leverage an LPDDR6 RAM vs the LPD5 12GB RAM in the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max , which should give it a theoretical edge on memory bandwidth. Also, only the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 Pro will use the LPDDR6 RAM, while its non-Pro variant is likely to stick with LPDDR5.

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