I tried gaming on Snapdragon’s biggest competitor

I was very impressed compared MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 the processor is new OPPO Find X8 Pro. While it doesn’t exactly top the charts, it’s certainly no slouch, and our stress test results offer plenty of thermal headroom to make it a brilliant choice for long gaming sessions. But can it keep up with the mighty Snapdragon when it comes to real-world gaming? I took the new flagship and many of the most popular Android titles to see what the phone is like in the real world.

I have high performance ASUS ROG Phone 9 Pro gaming phone that packs a powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. Google Pixel 8 Pro — with a more moderate GPU implementation. I’ve also included the ASUS Zenfone 11 Ultra with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor as an example of last-gen performance. Before we get to the results, let’s take a look at some benchmarks to see where things stand.

With custom Phoenix-L and -M, not Arm Cortex CPU cores Snapdragon 8 Elite Geekbench 6 has a significant advantage. However, few mobile games are CPU bound, so this lead probably won’t matter much in this gaming test. Our 3DMark Wild Life Extreme and Solar Bay tests provide more information. Both chipsets and phones offer practically identical peak scores, offering similar frame rates. However, the Dimensity 9400 passes the stress tests with about 9 or 10 runs and reasonable sustained performance at fairly low temperatures. To beat this, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite has to run significantly hotter, but will this discrepancy show up in real-world games, which are usually less demanding than these stress tests? Let’s go inside

Dimensity 9400 and Snapdragon 8 Elite gaming performance

We’ll start with a few popular FPS titles: COD Mobile to see if phones can handle the required 120fps frame rate, and PUBG Mobile to deliver HDR graphics and 4x AA requirements at 60fps. Neither of these two older games will be considered the pinnacle of mobile graphics, but their play styles require high and consistent frame rates.

MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400 hits solid frame rates here. While the Snapdragon 8 Elite isn’t as tightly locked to 120fps as it is on COD Mobile, it’s above 117fps most of the time, and you won’t see the rare dips to the still-healthy 112fps I saw in two cycles. But since we’re picky, this result isn’t as smooth as the last-gen Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which results in a marginally better top 90% and minimum framerate in this game.

The roles are slightly reversed in PUBG Mobile, where the OPPO Find X8 Pro and its MediaTek chip are slightly more consistent than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in terms of minimums. Again, it’s not as tightly locked to 60fps as the 8 Elite, but you’ll be hard-pressed to see or feel the difference below 1fps on average. Obviously, none of these games are too demanding for a flagship chip; We should note the slight increase in minimum FPS compared to last year’s Google Pixel 8 Pro, which suggests a marginal benefit for these higher-performance chips, at least for serious gamers.

Next we turn to Genshin Impact. Despite being four years old at this point, its open-world landscapes are still some of the more graphically demanding landscapes in the mobile gaming space, especially when maxing out the game with a 60fps target. The Dimensity 9400 definitely meets that target, with 90% of frames sitting above 59fps in most cases, and the minimum fps is a frame better than the latest ROG. Likewise, the phone provides better minimums than the last-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, so when it rarely dips, it’s not as noticeable.

However, the Snapdragon 8 Elite still has a tighter grip at exactly 60fps, although neither phone is struggling here. Although the MediaTek chip offers the usual single hook and missed frame, they are below 22ms and therefore should not be noticeable. Our Elite 8 actually saw a more noticeable bump toward the end of our five-minute run, but that seems like an anomaly.

Finally, we come to our emulator test with the fast-paced FZero GX. The Dimensity 9400 handles these sections a bit more smoothly than the 8 Elite, though menus continue to exhibit the snappiness of every phone I’ve tested so far. The OPPO Find X8 Pro and its MediaTek chip also match Qualcomm’s best for mid- and 10th-percentile frames, and even outperform the last-generation Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for as long as it’s been available. As we’ve seen before, Arm’s Mali architecture works pretty well here, and even the weaker Pixel 8 Pro manages solid framerates in gaming. That being said, the MediaTek chip seems a bit more unstable with regular small dips below 60fps, while ASUS’s gaming phone locks it to a mostly consistent value. However, both phones feel very smooth when playing, with minimal bumps detected on both phones.

Based on these four in-game tests, there’s little to say between the performance of the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite. Their comparative similarities translate equally well in real-world gaming, making it a great choice for those looking to ensure rock-solid frame rates today and in the near future. for this is a solid result Arm’s Immortal G925it was previously (perhaps unfairly) considered a slower GPU than Qualcomm’s Adreno.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite may have a slight fps edge in some cases and seems to stick to 60fps a bit more firmly, but it’s not enough to win here. The big caveat is the 8 Elite’s stress test temperature results and ours hands-on experience with hotter Snapdragon phones better than the well-cooled ASUS ROG Phone 9.

While actual games aren’t that hot, and I haven’t had the chance to play for at least 20 minutes, the higher temperatures point to the potential for more aggressive tuning when playing for longer, charging while gaming, or just living. in a warmer country than lush old Blighty. There are also upcoming games to consider, which will eventually put more stress on the phone’s hardware and cause the temperature to rise. 8 Elite may not run games in a few years. I have no qualms with the Dimensity 9400, at least not in the application I tested on the OPPO Find X8 Pro. We also compared the warmer vivo X200 Pro, but nothing comes close to the heat we’ve seen in some Elite 8 phones.

Of course, there’s also accessibility. The most advanced MediaTek-powered phones like the OPPO Find X8 Pro and vivo X200 Pro are not available in the US. I certainly wouldn’t go through the hassle and hoops to import one, especially since the Taiwanese chipset doesn’t have a clear performance advantage. Still, if these phones are available in your country, gamers should not hesitate to buy one.