Samsung Announces New Exynos for Alternate Galaxy S5

On Monday, Samsung held a massive press conference in Barcelona. The purpose of the event was to unveil the Galaxy S5 and new models of the company's Gear smartwatch. Much to our disappointment, Samsung didn't go into great detail about the hardware powering its new devices. However, that could be because the octa-core Exynos that will power an alternate, region-specific model of the GS5 was only announced today.

The new Exynos is an updated Exynos 5 as opposed to the rumored Exynos 6. Samsung is calling it an advanced Exynos 5 for 'premium mobile devices.' This is the Exynos 5422 and follows on from the Exynos 5 5420 we saw in the Galaxy Note 3. While the 5420 features a 1.8-1.9 GHz quad-core with a 1.3 GHz quad-core for lighter jobs, the 5422 has four big cores clocked to 2.1 GHz and four little cores clocked to 1.5 GHz. However, both chips use the same graphics chip, the ARM Mali-T628 MP6. Though the bump in core clock speed is definitely appreciated, we're a bit disappointed that the 5422 doesn't have a better GPU than its older sibling. The good news is that those in regions with the quad-core Snapdragon 801 under the hood don't have to feel too left out as far as performance is concerned.

Samsung also announced the Exynos 5260, which will power its Galaxy Note 3 Neo. It ditched the four and four configuration we see in the 5422 and instead has four 1.3 GHz ARM Cortex A7 cores with two beefier 1.7 GHz ARM Cortex A15 cores working alongside them. This chip supports WQXGA displays with resolutions of 2560 x 1600 and full HD video playback at 60 fps with encoding and decoding of H.264, MPEG4, and VP8.

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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.