Details about MediaTek's upcoming 2025 flagship chipset, the Dimensity 9500, continue to emerge. A new rumor suggests the SoC will adopt the yet-to-be-announced 'Travis' and 'Gelas' CPU architectures and support ARM's Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), similar to Apple's M4 chip.
Tipster Digital Chat Station claims the Dimensity 9500 will feature a '2 + 6' CPU cluster configuration, consisting of Cortex-X930 and Cortex-A730 cores. This represents a shift from MediaTek's current '1 + 3 + 4' cluster and aligns more with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite series. The exact reasoning for this change is unclear but is likely aimed at staying competitive with rival offerings.
Scalable Matrix Extension (SME)
The rumor also indicates the Dimensity 9500 will support ARM's Scalable Matrix Extension (SME), an instruction set that enhances processing efficiency for complex workloads. Support for SME has also been reported for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, potentially boosting multi-threaded performance by up to 20%. Apple's M4 processor also utilizes ARMv9 architecture with SME support, contributing to its impressive performance on benchmarks such as Geekbench 6.
Additionally, the Dimensity 9500 is rumored to be manufactured using TSMC's 3nm N3P technology with a top frequency of 4.00GHz. While these details are compelling, it's important to note that the chipset's actual performance remains to be seen, with the expectation of a launch in the third quarter of 2025.
