MediaTek’s Dimensity 9400+ should have been a knockout punch. Built on TSMC’s second-gen 3nm node, packed with ARM’s latest cores and an Immortalis-G925 GPU, it seemed ready to take on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite — but a real-world gaming faceoff with Genshin Impact pulled the curtain back on the limits of its design.

Benchmark results posted this week by @faridofanani96 showed both chips running Genshin Impact at a crisp 59.9FPS — one inside Vivo’s x200s (Dimensity) and the other in Xiaomi’s 15 Pro (Snapdragon).

MediaTek even edged ahead on power efficiency, sipping 4.6W to Qualcomm’s 4.9W. But when we look at one per cent lows — the dropouts that ruin your game — the Dimensity 9400+ tanked, hitting 31.5FPS versus the Snapdragon’s 48.2FPS. That’s a 53 per cent nosedive in fluidity, making the latter far more playable.

This isn’t an isolated stumble. The standard Dimensity 9400 struggled in this same area, which strongly suggests thermal throttling is throttling more than just performance — it’s strangling MediaTek’s gaming ambitions. The Vivo x200s doesn’t seem to pack sufficient cooling, and without robust thermals, all the power efficiency in the world won’t keep frames smooth.

Snapdragon 8 Elite, meanwhile, comes armed with Qualcomm’s custom Oryon CPU cores — two prime cores at 4.32GHz and six performance cores at 3.53GHz — delivering Geekbench 6 scores of 3,234 (single-core) and 10,059 (multi-core). The Dimensity 9400+ lags at 2,874 and 8,969, respectively, despite its Cortex-X925 and Cortex-X4 layout. The gulf in single-core performance is stark, especially when thermal throttling is thrown into the mix.

Graphics aren’t a clear-cut win either. While MediaTek’s Immortalis-G925 GPU posted a Wild Life Extreme score of 6,295 (FPS: 37.7), Qualcomm’s Adreno 830 scored slightly less at 6,125 (FPS: 36.68). But look at stress test stability, and the picture shifts again: Qualcomm holds a 75 per cent stability rate, while MediaTek drops to 42.1 per cent, proving that the latter’s performance doesn’t last.

AI hardware is another battleground. The Snapdragon 8 Elite flexes a Hexagon NPU with a 45 per cent boost over its predecessor and full support for multimodal AI. MediaTek counters with the NPU 890, which supports DeepSeek R1 and shows a 20 per cent uplift from the 9400. But once again, Qualcomm’s platform maturity and ecosystem likely give it the edge.

Qualcomm bundles the Snapdragon X80 modem with 10 Gbps, 5G speeds, and satellite comms. MediaTek leans into GNSS enhancements and extended Bluetooth range — up to 8km for direct phone-to-phone contact. Impressive, but niche.

Ultimately, the Dimensity 9400+ isn’t a bad chip. It’s efficient, competitive, and ahead in GPU peak output. But Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite dominates where it matters: real-world gaming, sustained performance, and platform support.

Until MediaTek sorts out thermals and stability, Qualcomm’s silicon remains the top dog in Android gaming.