The competition among major chipmakers is more fierce than ever, with all of them bringing massive upgrades every year to their latest chips. Recently, MediaTek unveiled the Dimensity 9400 with significant performance and efficiency improvements. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, featuring Oryon cores for the first time in a mobile chipset, shatters benchmark records like anything. We also have Apple A18 Pro, powering the latest iPhone 16 series.

These three chips are the most powerful mobile chipsets from their respective brands. But how do they stack up against each other? Let’s put them through different benchmarks to see which one holds the crown.

Let’s begin with the spec sheet:

Snapdragon 8 Elite vs Dimensity 9400 vs Apple A18 Pro: Benchmark

[Note: We tested the Realme GT7 Pro (powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite), Vivo X200 Pro (powered by Dimensity 9400), and iPhone 16 Pro Max (powered by Apple A18 Pro) for benchmark results.] 

Geekbench results

Geekbench runs a device through a series of tests to measure its CPU capabilities. The benchmarking platform outputs single-core and multi-core performance results.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple A18 Pro have similar single-core performance, while the Dimensity 9400 lags behind both. However, in the multi-core test, the Dimensity chip climbs ahead of the A18 Pro but falls short of the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

As per Geekbench 6 scores, the Snapdragon 8 Elite has the most powerful CPU of all three, followed by Dimensity 9400 and Apple A18 Pro. 

AnTuTu results

AnTuTu is a popular benchmarking tool for measuring the CPU, GPU, UX, and memory performance of a device. The total score represents the overall strength. One thing to note here is that the AnTuTu for Android runs on Vulkan API, while the iOS version runs on Metal API.

The Dimensity 9400 rocks the AnTuTu chart, though the Snapdragon 8 Elite isn’t far behind. The Apple A18 Pro, however, has a significantly weaker AnTuTu score than the other two. 

Snapdragon 8 Elite vs Dimensity 9400 vs Apple A18 Pro: Key differences

CPU

The Snapdragon 8 Elite and Dimensity 9400 have eight CPU cores, whereas the Apple A18 Pro only has six. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a game-changer chipset for Qualcomm as it’s equipped with an in-house Oryon CPU, the first time on a Snapdragon chip, and the results have been impressive so far. 

The 8 Elite’s CPU has two Oryon cores clocked at 4.32GHz and six Oryon cores at 3.53GHz. The Dimensity 9400’s CPU architecture consists of a Cortex-X925 large-core running at 3.63GHz, three Cortex-X4 performance cores running at 3.3GHz, and the remaining four are Cortex-A720 clocked at 2.4GHz.

Apple A18 Pro’s CPU has two custom-designed high-performance cores running at 4.04GHz and six custom-designed power-efficiency cores running at 2.2GHz. 

GPU

The Snapdragon 8 Elite ships with Adreno 830 GPU; Dimensity 9400 gets Immortalis-G925 MC12; and the A18 Pro gets a 6-core GPU.

The GPU inside the 8 Elite chip brings support for Unreal Engine 5 with Nanite for a film-quality 3D environment for immersive gaming. It comes with a full suite of Snapdragon Elite Gaming features, such as Qualcomm Adaptive Performance Engine 4.0, real-time hardware-accelerated ray racing, Snapdragon Game Super Resolution 2.0, and Adreno Frame Motion Engine 2.0.

The Dimensity 9400’s 12-core GPU aims to match desktop PC-grade ray tracing capabilities. It brings MediaTek HyperEngine gaming technologies, such as MediaTek Adaptive Gaming Technology 3.0, MediaTek Frame Rate Converter, and HyperEngine’s Super Resolution, for a smooth gaming experience.

The A18 Pro has a 6-core GPU that is 20% faster than its predecessor, the A17 Pro and delivers 2x faster hardware ray tracing. The Snapdragon 8 Elite’s GPU is 40% faster, and the Dimensity 9400’s GPU is 41% faster than their predecessors.

Connectivity

All three chips have an integrated 5G modem with many dissimilarities. The Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple A18 Pro have a peak download speed of 10Gbps, which is 7.3Gbps on the Dimensity 9400. All these have Wi-Fi 7 support. However, the 8 Elite supports the newer Bluetooth 6.0 standard, while the other two support Bluetooth 5.4.

AI capabilities

For on-device AI tasks, the Snapdragon 8 Elite has a hexagon NPU that delivers 45% better AI performance than its predecessor. The Dimensity 9400 gets the AI job done through MediaTek NPU 890, which offers 80% faster LLM prompt performance while being 35% more power efficient compared to its predecessor.

The 8th gen NPU inside the Dimensity 9400 is the world’s first high-quality on-device video generation and the world’s first on-device LoRA training, MediaTek claims.

The Apple A18 Pro has a 16-core neural engine that can perform 35 trillion operations per second (TOPS).

Snapdragon 8 Elite vs Dimensity 9400 vs Apple A18 Pro: Final words

Snapdragon 8 Elite, Dimensity 9400, and Apple 18 Pro are the most powerful smartphone chips, offering a smoother experience no matter how demanding the apps/games are. They can handle the needs of most users.

On benchmarks, the Snapdragon 8 Elite outperforms the other two. In some tests, the Dimensity 9400 leads the race. The Apple A18 Pro also shows strong performance on Geekbench. However, the AnTuTu is significantly lower compared to the other two.

In the end, I’d say the choice comes down to your preferred ecosystem. If you’re highly invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple A18 Pro makes a lot of sense. For Android, I’d prefer the Snapdragon 8 Elite over Dimensity 9400.

Snapdragon 8 Elite phones:

Xiaomi 15 (review)

Xiaomi 15 Pro

iQOO 13

OnePlus 13 (review)

Realme GT7 Pro (review)

MediaTek Dimensity 9400 phones:

Vivo X200

Vivo X200 Pro (hands-on)

Vivo X200 Pro mini

Oppo Find X8

Oppo Find X8 Pro

Apple A18 Pro phones:

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max