On September 16, vivo officially announced that its all-new vivo X500 Pro series flagship phones will be the first in the world to feature MediaTek’s latest-generation Dimensity 9600 Pro flagship chip. This processor uses TSMC’s 2nm process and is MediaTek’s most powerful flagship AI mobile chip to date. The X500 Pro series will officially launch in Shanghai on September 21, 2026.
This is not the first deep collaboration between vivo and MediaTek. Looking back, vivo has repeatedly secured first-launch rights for Dimensity flagship chips, and teaming up again this time means the two sides’ technical collaboration continues to deepen. After the vivo X500 Pro series adopts the Dimensity 9600 Pro, it will fully leverage the chip’s powerful computing and AI potential to achieve all-round upgrades in image processing, smart applications, and performance. OPPO has also announced that its Find X10 Pro Max will use the same chip, but vivo’s launch is one day earlier than OPPO’s, securing the “global first launch” spot.
Dimensity 9600 Pro: Backed by TSMC’s 2nm Process, All-Big-Core Architecture Fully Overhauled
The Dimensity 9600 Pro uses TSMC’s advanced 2nm process and Design-Technology Co-Optimization (DTCO), making it MediaTek’s first 2nm smartphone chip.
In terms of CPU architecture, the Dimensity 9600 Pro adopts an all-new 2+3+3 all-big-core design, completely abandoning the traditional small-core architecture. The core configuration includes two Arm C2-Ultra super cores clocked at up to 4.55GHz, three 4.35GHz C2-Pro big cores, and three 3.1GHz C2-Pro big cores. This architecture has a higher-capacity 34.5MB cache memory (L2+L3+SLC), with the L2 cache system increased by 21% over the previous generation. In terms of performance, single-core performance is up 17% over the previous generation, multi-core performance is up 15%, and multi-core peak power consumption is significantly reduced by 61%, with a noticeable improvement in energy efficiency under high-load scenarios.
Memory and storage specifications have also been fully upgraded, with the Dimensity 9600 Pro becoming the first to support LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 flash storage. LPDDR6 delivers 33% higher effective bandwidth at the same frequency, while UFS 5.0’s read and write speeds are double those of the previous generation.
Dual NPU architecture features an Agentic AI engine, bringing a leap in on-device AI capabilities.
AI computing is one of the core selling points of the Dimensity 9600 Pro. MediaTek has integrated a dual NPU architecture and Agentic AI Engine 3.0 into this chip, giving it proactive perception and execution capabilities.
Among them, the second-generation ultra-energy-efficient NPU integrates a low-power sensor hub architecture, reducing power consumption by 40% compared with the previous generation. It enables low-power context awareness for AI Agents, achieving always-on proactive services. The 10th-generation ultra-performance NPU 1090 is built for complex on-device AI applications, delivering a 51% improvement in large language model Prefill performance over the previous generation and a 55% increase in tokens generated per watt.
In terms of generative AI, the Dimensity 9600 Pro’s new-generation Generative AI Engine 3.0 doubles INT4 computing power, supports Hybrid Attention (HAT) computing and large-model compression technology, and can run Mixture of Experts (MoE) models with up to 30B parameters on-device. MediaTek specifically notes that such models typically require only about 3B parameters resident in memory, with the remaining parameters dynamically loaded based on task requirements, so smartphone manufacturers do not need to add extra memory capacity.
If you’re interested in this processor, stay tuned for our upcoming first-hand coverage.
Source: KOCPC Chinese