MediaTek has announced the Dimensity CX C10 Max, a new flagship system on chip for laptops, detachables and tablets. It is the first flagship processor in the Dimensity CX family, the computing branch of the Dimensity brand, and it combines an eight-core CPU with no efficiency cores, a 55 TOPS neural processing unit (NPU), an AI image signal processor (ISP) and TSMC’s 3nm N3 manufacturing process.
MediaTek groups the chip’s features under four areas: performance, on-device agentic AI, the AI ISP camera and power efficiency. The headline claims are up to 15% higher multi-threaded CPU performance than its closest competitor at the same power, up to 50% lower power at the same single-threaded performance, and up to 19 hours of battery life. All of these figures come from MediaTek’s own testing ahead of any retail devices, and the test conditions behind them are covered in detail below.
What Dimensity CX is
MediaTek first outlined the Dimensity CX name at its analyst day in April. The Dimensity brand is now split into three lines: Dimensity for mobile, Dimensity CX for computing and Dimensity Auto for automotive. The C10 Max is the first generation flagship in the CX line, and MediaTek describes it as delivering flagship performance and on-device agentic AI for its device and operating system partners.
Replacing the Kompanio Ultra
The C10 Max takes over from the Kompanio Ultra, which was MediaTek’s previous flagship processor for Chromebook Plus devices. MediaTek said the new chip is intended for a new class of operating systems and will not be used in Chromebooks of the past generation.
The company declined to confirm which operating systems will run on C10 Max devices, saying that its OS and device partners will make those announcements themselves over the coming weeks and months. It is worth pointing out, however, that the benchmark and battery life figures MediaTek has published were all recorded on a reference board running ChromeOS R133.
How it differs from RTX Spark
The C10 Max is also separate from the RTX Spark platform that MediaTek has developed with Nvidia for Windows laptops. MediaTek describes RTX Spark as a higher end product built for graphics, content creation, model training and heavy inference work. The C10 Max is designed for thinner, lighter and more power efficient machines, and MediaTek said many of the lessons from building platforms, board support packages and OEM relationships are shared across both programmes.
CPU: eight big cores and a large cache
The CPU uses what MediaTek calls an all big core design. There are eight cores in total, arranged in three tiers:
- One Arm Cortex-X925 core for the heaviest single-threaded work
- Three Arm Cortex-X4 cores
- Four Arm Cortex-A720 cores
There are no small efficiency cores in this layout. The Cortex-A720 cores take on the lighter background work that would usually be handled by low power cores on other chips, while the X925 and X4 cores deal with more demanding tasks. The trade-off with this kind of design is that it relies on the manufacturing process and the scheduler to keep idle and light load power consumption down, rather than on dedicated efficiency cores.
MediaTek has paired the CPU with 12MB of L3 cache and 10MB of system level cache (SLC). A larger cache allows the processor to keep more frequently used data close to the cores, which reduces the number of slower trips out to main memory. MediaTek said the CPU is one area where it does not cut corners, even with the focus on AI across the rest of the platform.
Memory and storage
The chip supports LPDDR5X memory at 9600Mbps, along with UFS 4.0 and PCIe Gen 4 storage. Memory speed has become more relevant on laptop chips because large language models running locally are heavily limited by how quickly data can be moved between memory and the processor. Faster memory tends to translate into quicker token generation for on-device AI models, in addition to the more general gains in application performance.
CPU performance claims and test conditions
MediaTek is quoting two CPU figures. The first is up to 15% faster multi-threaded performance than competing platforms when both chips are held to the same 12W power level. The second is up to 50% less power at the same single-threaded performance.
During the question and answer session, MediaTek confirmed that the comparison is against Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite X1E rather than the newer X2 series. The small print on the slides gives the full test conditions:
- Both results are based on Geekbench 6.5
- The Dimensity CX C10 Max was tested on a MediaTek reference board running ChromeOS R133 with 16GB of RAM and a 60Wh battery
- The Snapdragon X Elite X1E-84-100 was tested in a Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge running Windows 11 with 16GB of RAM and a 60Wh battery
- The multi-threaded scores were compared at the same power level of 12W
There are some limitations with this comparison. The two chips were tested on different operating systems, and one was a reference board while the other was a retail laptop, which can affect both scores and power readings. The comparison is also against an earlier generation of Qualcomm’s laptop chip rather than its current range. MediaTek’s reasoning is that the X1E sits in the same category of processor and device as the C10 Max, but independent testing on shipping hardware will be needed to see how the chip compares with a wider selection of alternatives.
GPU, displays and video
Graphics are handled by an Arm Immortalis-G925 GPU with 11 cores, which supports hardware ray tracing. MediaTek did not share any graphics performance figures during the briefing, so it is not yet clear how the GPU compares with the integrated graphics on competing laptop chips.
The MiraVision 1090 display processor supports eDP 1.4a, DisplayPort 1.4 with multi-stream transport and MIPI DSI. The chip can drive three 4K displays in total, one internal panel plus two external monitors, which MediaTek positions as a productivity feature for multitasking setups.
On the media side there is 4K 10-bit hardware decoding and encoding, with support for AV1, HEVC, AVC and VP9. Hardware AV1 support is useful for streaming services and video calls that use the codec, as it avoids falling back to software decoding on the CPU.
NPU 890 and on-device agentic AI
The NPU is the MediaTek NPU 890, rated at 55 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) measured at INT8 precision. It uses two types of core, which MediaTek labels a performance core and a flexible core. MediaTek claims this is the fastest NPU in its category.
TOPS figures should be treated with some caution. They describe raw throughput under a particular numerical precision, and vendors do not always measure them in the same way, so they are not a direct guide to real-world AI performance. The supporting software and model optimisation often matter as much as the headline number.
Supported models
On that front, MediaTek said it has optimised several open large language model families for the NPU at launch, including DeepSeek, Qwen, Llama and Gemma. The platform is also described as supporting multi-modal models. The intention is that applications and AI agents built on these models can run their inference locally on the NPU instead of sending requests to a cloud service.
MediaTek also highlighted non-LLM features that use the NPU, such as faster file search, image generation and smart grouping. The company’s view is that local agents can run without a usage meter attached, and that on-device processing also allows AI features to work offline.
AI ISP camera
Laptop cameras are not often a focus for chip makers, but MediaTek has given the camera its own pillar on the C10 Max. The chip includes the Imagiq 1090 ISP, and MediaTek says the camera pipeline works alongside the NPU to improve image quality and processing.
The ISP supports camera sensors up to 32MP, full range HDR zoom and cinematic video recording, along with electronic image stabilisation (EIS). Dual cameras are also supported in detachable designs.
The electronic image stabilisation is aimed at detachables and tablets, where the device may be held or moved while recording. MediaTek described the result as closer to a dedicated camera than a traditional webcam, with the NPU and ISP working together to steady the footage.
It is worth being realistic about this. The ISP sets the upper limit on processing, but the final image quality will depend on the sensors and lenses that manufacturers choose to fit, and laptop lids leave limited space for camera modules. A 32MP sensor limit does not mean devices will ship with 32MP cameras.
Process node, battery life and thermals
The C10 Max is built on TSMC’s N3 process, a 3nm class node. MediaTek quotes up to 19 hours of battery life, which it says is based on Google’s Power Load Test (PLT) using a MediaTek reference board running ChromeOS R133 with 16GB of RAM and a 60Wh battery. The company’s own footnote states that battery life varies significantly with settings, usage and other factors.
Battery results from a reference board also do not account for the display, battery capacity and other components that manufacturers will choose, so figures from finished laptops are likely to vary from model to model.
MediaTek also said the power efficiency of the chip allows OEMs to build fanless designs at this performance level, and it describes the resulting devices as quiet, cool and ultra portable. Whether individual laptops are fanless will be down to each manufacturer’s thermal design.
Connectivity and security
The platform supports Wi-Fi 7 at up to 7.3Gbps and Bluetooth 6.0 through MediaTek’s connectivity solutions. For security, the chip supports HDCP 2.3, a secure video path with Widevine L1 for protected streaming content, and Arm TrustZone with secure boot.
Dimensity CX C10 Max key specifications
| Process | TSMC N3 (3nm) |
| CPU | 8 cores: 1x Cortex-X925, 3x Cortex-X4, 4x Cortex-A720 |
| Cache | 12MB L3 cache, 10MB system level cache |
| GPU | Arm Immortalis-G925 MC11 (11 cores), hardware ray tracing |
| NPU | MediaTek NPU 890, 55 TOPS (INT8) |
| Camera ISP | Imagiq 1090, up to 32MP sensors, EIS |
| Memory | LPDDR5X 9600Mbps |
| Storage | UFS 4.0, PCIe Gen 4 |
| Display | MiraVision 1090, eDP 1.4a, DisplayPort 1.4 MST, MIPI DSI, up to three 4K displays (one internal, two external) |
| Video | 4K 10-bit decode and encode, AV1, HEVC, AVC, VP9 |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 7 up to 7.3Gbps, Bluetooth 6.0 |
| Security | HDCP 2.3, Widevine L1 secure video path, Arm TrustZone, secure boot |
| Battery life claim | Up to 19 hours (Google PLT, 60Wh battery, reference board) |
Availability and pricing
MediaTek says devices using the Dimensity CX C10 Max will come from leading OEMs and run on popular operating systems, with launches expected in the coming months. No specific laptops, tablets or operating systems have been confirmed yet, and MediaTek said these will be announced by its partners.
As with most processors of this type, the chip is sold to device manufacturers rather than directly to consumers, and MediaTek has not given any pricing. The cost of C10 Max devices in the UK will depend on the laptops and tablets that manufacturers build around it, and UK pricing in £ should become clear once the first models are announced.
