Samsung Explains New Exynos 8 Octa Chipset

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With CES 2016 wrapped up, the collective eye of the Android enthusiast has turned over to Samsung, eagerly awaiting more tidbits about the next powerhouse the company has to offer. After undoubtedly remarkable but arguably supreme flagship smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy S6 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 5, the bar for the Samsung Galaxy S7 is set very high by Samsung themselves.

One of the aspects of the new Galaxy S7 that gets everyone excited is the SoC inside. Some variants of the Galaxy S7 will reportedly rock Samsung’s own Exynos 8 Octa chipset, which is widely expected to be one of the most leading edge SoC’s of 2016. The company is leaving no stones unturned in trying to build hype for the SoC, as it released an infographic detailing a few aspects of the new chip.

The Exynos 8 Octa is the first chipset from Samsung to use its own custom designed ARM cores based on 64-bit ARMv8 architecture. As its name implies, the Exynos 8 Octa is an octa core chip, featuring the popular big.LITTLE computing architecture for heterogenous multi-processing. It packs in four low-power cores for efficiently undertaking routine tasks along with four performance-oriented cores for intensive processing. As with other big.LITTLE configurations, this allows it to balance both high performance and power efficiency. Using the Exynos 7 Octa 7420 as a comparative example (found in Samsung’s 2015 flagships), the Exynos 8 Octa provides 30% improvement in performance and a 10% enhancement in energy efficiency.

The Exynos 8 Octa is based on Samsung’s 14nm FinFET fabrication process which makes use of 3D transistors to reduce the chip size. It also integrates the Modem and Applications Processor onto a single chip. The integrated LTE Modem supports LTE Cat.12 for downlink and Cat.13 for uplink, allowing maximum theoretical speeds of up to 600 Mbps for downloads and 150 Mbps for uploads, assuming no other constraints.

The infographic also talks about the GPU in the Exynos 8 Octa, but skimps out on details. It mentions that the GPU can deliver a PC or console-like gaming experience thanks to enhanced 3D graphics capability, but we must take that with a grain of salt. The GPU can also support 4K UHD displays, thus paving the way for more higher-resolution displays from Samsung in the future (Note 6, maybe?).

Click on the infographic below to expand:

You can also view the infographic directly from Samsung’s website.

The Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Exynos 8 Octa come closer to us with every passing day. We cannot wait to see how the Exynos 8 Octa will stack up against its competition, mainly the Snapdragon 820.

What are your thoughts on the Exynos 8 Octa? Will it be able to give the Snapdragon 820 a run for its money? Let us know in the comments below!

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