MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Benchmark Leak Shows Minor Performance Improvement

The MediaTek Dimensity 8500 has recently appeared on Geekbench, offering an early glimpse into its performance. This new chipset is expected to power an upcoming Honor smartphone, believed to be the Honor Power 2. The listing has drawn attention because it suggests that the new processor brings only minor improvements over its predecessor, the Dimensity 8400.

The Honor Power 2 is set to succeed the original Honor Power, which launched earlier in 2025. That device gained popularity mainly due to its massive 8,000 mAh battery, which was one of its strongest selling points. With the successor now showing up in benchmark listings, interest is growing around what upgrades Honor plans to deliver this time.

MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Benchmark Leak Shows Minor Performance Improvement

According to Geekbench, the tested device carries the model number “Honor SER-AN00” and comes with 12 GB of RAM. The benchmark scores indicate that the Dimensity 8500 achieves a single-core score of up to 1,728 points and a multi-core score of 6,762 points. These results place it only slightly ahead of the Dimensity 8400, which averages around 1,621 points in single-core tests and about 6,208 points in multi-core performance.

Overall, this translates to a performance increase of roughly seven percent. While any improvement is welcome, the gain is relatively small. It is also important to note that these are early benchmark results. Final retail performance may differ once the chipset is fully optimized and officially launched.

Looking at the CPU configuration, the Dimensity 8500 appears very similar to the Dimensity 8400. Both chips use the same core layout. There is one prime core, three performance-focused cores, and four efficiency cores. The main difference lies in clock speeds rather than structure. The prime core now runs at 3.40 GHz, compared to 3.25 GHz on the older model. The three performance cores are clocked at 3.20 GHz, up from 3.0 GHz previously. The efficiency cores also receive a small bump, moving from 2.10 GHz to 2.20 GHz.

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Despite these increases, MediaTek has not confirmed whether the underlying core architecture has changed. If the architecture remains the same, real-world performance improvements may be limited. Users may notice slightly smoother multitasking, but dramatic gains are unlikely.

The GPU details also point toward a modest update. The Dimensity 8500 features the Mali-G720 MC8 GPU, while the Dimensity 8400 uses the Mali-G720 MC7. This suggests only one additional GPU core. As a result, gaming and graphics performance may see only marginal improvements.

In short, the MediaTek Dimensity 8500 seems to be a refined version of the previous generation rather than a major leap forward. It focuses on small clock speed increases and incremental changes. For the Honor Power 2, this means the device may rely more on other features, such as battery capacity and software optimization, to stand out. More official details are expected closer to launch, but for now, expectations should remain measured.