For 2013, Samsung is announcing a new 8-core processor that
it says provides twice the 3D performance of any previous mobile processor,
including the company's Exynos 4 Quad. It's called the Exynos 5 Octa, and it
uses ARM's new big.LITTLE processor technology. The processor design switches
between two clusters of four cores each: ARM Cortex-A15 for performance, and
Cortex-A7 for common workloads.
This basic principle isn't a new idea; current phones can
change frequency and voltage on the fly, running slower when their full speed
isn't important. This isn't even the first chip to use separate cores for high
and low workloads. But Samsung says that it can cut power consumption by up to
70 percent compared to the Exynos 5 Dual by being able to tackle common jobs
with the lower-voltage A7 cores, which means — unlike the Exynos 5 Dual — we
could see it fit inside a smartphone.
And since it has four Cortex-A15 cores, the Exynos 5 Octa
stands to outclass that existing Exynos 5 Dual, the dual-core-A15 processor
found in the Nexus 10 — already an extremely fast chip. We're definitely
looking forward to seeing if Samsung can deliver better battery life and better
performance simultaneously.
