The Kirin 8000 was earlier leaked as another unreleased SoC from Huawei that will be found in the Nova 12 Pro, but there is another variant of the Kirin 9000S that is said to power a more premium member of the Nova line, though it is apparently a downgraded version called the Kirin 9000SL. According to the leaked specifications, both chipsets share the same GPU but sport a different CPU cluster, with the details provided below.
Kirin 9000SL’s fastest core is running at 2.35GHz, which is lower than the Kirin 9000S, but there are additional cores with this chipset
The Kirin 9000S features a ‘1 + 3 + 4’ CPU cluster, forming an 8-core solution, whereas, according to the image shared by Mochamad Farido Fanani on X, the Kirin 9000SL will be a 9-core part, sporting a ‘2 + 3 + 4’ cluster. In short, the Kirin 9000SL has two cores, both running at 2.35GHz, but they are operating at a slower frequency than the single TaiShan V120 core of the Kirin 9000S, which is clocked in at 2.62GHz.
Thanks to the increased core count, it is likely that the Kirin 9000SL will outperform the Kirin 9000S in multi-core performance, but we feel that the difference may not be prominent as the clock speed differences are not that significant. Scouring the image for more details, the new SoC is expected to be found in the Nova 12 Ultra, but it is unconfirmed if the silicon is re-using the same TaiShan cores.
What is similar between the Kirin 9000SL and Kirin 9000S is the Maleoon 910 GPU, so in tests or tasks that stress the graphics processor, both chipsets should perform identically. Overall, the Kirin 9000SL is simply a re-branded version of SMIC’s 7nm Kirin 9000S that has a specifications alteration, but no word is given if Huawei will take advantage of the 5nm process to mass produce something better for the P70 series. It is too early to comment on Huawei’s plans, but we will keep you in the loop on updates, so stay tuned.
