ZTE Apache May Become First Eight-Core Smartphone

By Zak Islam
published

Samsung rumored to be working on an octo-core Galaxy S4.

The ZTE Apache could beat Samsung's Galaxy S4 to the title of first eight-core smartphone, according to a report.

According to China Times, ZTE is collaborating with MediaTek to release a flagship, octo-core device. Its current codename is military-inspired Apache. In addition to the extremely powerful processor, the report also says the smartphone will feature full HD display, as well as a 13-megapixel camera and 4G connectivity.

Previous speculation has suggested that Samsung's unannounced Galaxy S4 boasts eight cores. An official unveiling is apparently set for CES during January, 2013.

ZTE, known for its durable phones, is also purportedly working on the Android-powered ZTE Grand X Pro.

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Zak Islam
51 Comments Comment from the forums
  • deksman
    And we still don't have 8 core laptops.
    Lol... Intel is content at milking existing quad core setups for a while even though we could have had them years before they actually 'debuted'.
    Sigh...

    Oh well, if at this rate computing capabilities of smartpones/tablets exceed laptops... I will hardly object.

    Meh... its just a matter of time before Capitalism goes to atom scale computers (even though technologically/resource wise it can already be done - its just 'cost prohibitive').
    Reply
  • aicom
    Why are people obsessed with cores? 8 core phones simply don't make sense. The quad-core phones are already pushing that form factor to its thermal and power limits.
    Reply
  • aicom
    deksmanAnd we still don't have 8 core laptops.Lol... Intel is content at milking existing quad core setups for a while even though we could have had them years before they actually 'debuted'It's the same reason we don't have an 8-core LGA 2011 CPU yet. Intel could make an 8-core laptop with current technology but you'd be looking at cores running at optimistically 1.2 GHz to fit in the 35/45W TDP limit. With cores that slow, the performance would be worse than with a 2 or 4 core with comparable TDP. Intel (and other processor vendors) find the right balance between core count and clock speed which makes sense for the current generation of applications.
    Reply
  • freggo
    aicomWhy are people obsessed with cores? 8 core phones simply don't make sense. The quad-core phones are already pushing that form factor to its thermal and power limits.
    Actually more cores at a lower frequency make more sense than fewer cores at a higher frequency.
    You can easily turn off cores that are not needed.

    Reply
  • coder543
    This is deceptive. The big.little architecture only has 4 cores enabled at any given time...
    Reply
  • coder543
    freggoActually more cores at a lower frequency make more sense than fewer cores at a higher frequency.You can easily turn off cores that are not needed.
    Few programs are optimized for many core architectures. You can easily scale the clock frequencies on fewer cores, just sayin.
    Reply
  • chewy1963
    aicomIt's the same reason we don't have an 8-core LGA 2011 CPU yet. Intel could make an 8-core laptop with current technology but you'd be looking at cores running at optimistically 1.2 GHz to fit in the 35/45W TDP limit. With cores that slow, the performance would be worse than with a 2 or 4 core with comparable TDP. Intel (and other processor vendors) find the right balance between core count and clock speed which makes sense for the current generation of applications.
    It will be interesting to see if this applies to this 8 core phone too. Seems like it would need to run a REALLY slow clock to make it power/heat prohibitive for a phone form factor... 8 cores, sure, but at like 400 MHz.
    Reply
  • coder543
    chewy1963It will be interesting to see if this applies to this 8 core phone too. Seems like it would need to run a REALLY slow clock to make it power/heat prohibitive for a phone form factor... 8 cores, sure, but at like 400 MHz.
    again, this will NOT BE RUNNING 8 CORES AT ONCE.

    Only 4 will be active at a time.
    Reply
  • emperor piehead
    As it is how many phone programs would even use 8 cores especially?
    Reply
  • blazorthon
    aicomIt's the same reason we don't have an 8-core LGA 2011 CPU yet. Intel could make an 8-core laptop with current technology but you'd be looking at cores running at optimistically 1.2 GHz to fit in the 35/45W TDP limit. With cores that slow, the performance would be worse than with a 2 or 4 core with comparable TDP. Intel (and other processor vendors) find the right balance between core count and clock speed which makes sense for the current generation of applications.
    We do have eight-core LGA 2011 CPUs. There are several LGA 2011 Xeons with eight cores. We don't have any i7s that I'm aware of with eight cores, but the Xeons don't not count because of that since you didn't specify otherwise.

    chewy1963It will be interesting to see if this applies to this 8 core phone too. Seems like it would need to run a REALLY slow clock to make it power/heat prohibitive for a phone form factor... 8 cores, sure, but at like 400 MHz.
    Actually, a process shrink and somewhat more power efficient architecture than current models is all that it would take. There'd be no need to use low frequencies for an eight-core phone CPU. Something like taking say a current quad-core, shrinking its process a node, and updating its architecture would give enough thermal and die area headroom for four more cores. Whether or not there's be good reason to do so is a much more complicated and questionable argument than whether or not it can be done.

    Regardless, none of that matters except in an educational sense here because you're all mistaken about how the architecture in the subject of the article works. As others have said, there won't normally be a situation where all eight cores are in use AFAIK.
    Reply