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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  • WebsWalker
    great! 4 & 4 cores to drain even more the battery... this should be in a tablet to take advantage of real battery. But in a phone? To me it's almost non-sense to do so...And on another hand, ARM and RISC is designed for low computation not advanced one. People should realise that there is another architecture, x86 has been designed for that purpose. In coming years it will become more and more obvious as the smartphone are catching up with computers for the general purpose tasks...
    Reply
  • ericburnby
    That's what I call innovation. Slightly bumping the clock speed must have taken a marvel of engineering.

    Compared to the A7 these processors are lame. They better come up with something in the next 6 months. The A8 will be out then, and if Apple continues with their stretch of doubling performance each year Samsung and Qualcomm are going to be way behind.
    Reply
  • ericburnby
    A little research would show you that EVERY phone maker doubles speed with each new phone. Now crawl back under your iRock.
    A little research would tell you that Apple's A7 is the worlds most advanced ARM processor. By a mile.
    Reply
  • wemakeourfuture
    A little research would show you that EVERY phone maker doubles speed with each new phone. Now crawl back under your iRock.
    A little research would tell you that Apple's A7 is the worlds most advanced ARM processor. By a mile.
    deflecting huh? changing the subject huh? still wrong!
    @SlipperWhenHacked: you consistently make statements that make no sense. Less typing and more reading. Expand your knowledge before giving horrific responses that reflect a uneducated opinion.
    Reply
  • MuffinsPHD
    Modern-day angry birds will never utilize more than 2 cores! 8 cores is pointless and no one will ever code games for it! - *sarcasm*
    Reply
  • Alex1357
    Modern-day angry birds will never utilize more than 2 cores! 8 cores is pointless and no one will ever code games for it! - *sarcasm*
    yes you sure dat sarcastic
    Reply