The 5G chipset war kicked off with the Snapdragon 865 5G and Dimensity 1000 in the flagship segment towards the end of last year. We took a close look at how the two 5G chipsets compare, revealing how MediaTek has gotten even serious in its quest to take on Qualcomm. The Dimensity 800-series is yet another testament of the said drive.

  • CPU

Snapdragon 690 5G is an octa-core chipset based on a new Kryo 560 CPU. This is the second chipset in Qualcomm’s portfolio to use the new Cortex-A77 cores and Kryo 500-series branding. It includes two Cortex-A77 cores clocked at 2.0GHz and six Cortex-A56 cores clocked at 1.7GHz.

CPU

  • GPU

Snapdragon 690 arrives with a new Adreno 619L GPU, which sounds like a lite variant of this unannounced GPU. It sits between the Adreno 618 aboard the Snapdragon 730 and Adreno 620 aboard the Snapdragon 765. Qualcomm claims that you will get 60% faster graphics performance compared to the Snapdragon 675 with this GPU.

GPU

5G Modem

Snapdragon 690 comes equipped with the Snapdragon X51 modem, which offers download and upload speeds up to 2.5Gbps and 660Mbps respectively. Dimensity 820, on the other hand, includes the MediaTek 5G UltraSave modem along with 2CC carrier aggregation. The company hasn’t revealed the download and upload speeds but they should be in the same ballpark as the Snapdragon 690 for one simple reason – both chipsets support the same bandwidths.

  • ISP

Cameras are an utmost priority when picking a smartphone and with the megapixels war raging loud, all latest chipsets support high-resolution sensors and multi-camera setups.

ISP

Display Support

High refresh rate displays will be the standard by next year and chipsets are ready to support your needs. Both the Snapdragon 690 5G and Dimensity 820 support up to Full-HD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate.

  • AI Engine

Qualcomm may have taken massive strides on the AI front but MediaTek is not sitting ducks. The Dimensity 820 sports the MediaTek APU 3.0 (the 3rd-Gen AI processing unit) that’s responsible for handling activities such as “AI-Recognition (for example, objects, scenes, or people), AI-Super Resolution and AI-deblur functions.”

AI Engine

Connectivity

This is the one department where the Dimensity 820 falls behind the Snapdragon 690. Qualcomm has made sure that its 5G chipset is future-proof, with it supporting WiFi 6 (802.11 ax) and Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity options out-of-the-box. It’s then up to the phone makers to add the required antennas and enable the high-speed WiFi on their devices.

Snapdragon 690 5G vs Dimensity 820: Specs Sheet

Snapdragon 690 5G vs Dimensity 820: Rise of Affordable 5G Phones

Snapdragon 690 5G from Qualcomm goes head-to-head with the Dimensity 820 SoC from MediaTek. It may not be as power-efficient due to the 8nm process technology but it has the latest Cortex-A77 cores onboard. Both chipsets support sub-6GHz 5G networks but it should be clear that Snapdragon 690 5G is more future-proof, thanks to WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1 support.