Sammy's Next-Gen Exynos 5 Octa Chip May Be Hampered by Current-Gen PowerVR graphics

dgstorm

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Samsung_Exynos_5_Octa.jpg

Over CES last week, some of the biggest news to hit the mobile-tech world were the new mobile processor announcements. From the usual industry player's like NVIDIA's Tegra 4, & Qualcomm's next Snapdragon, to new market entries like Huawei and Intel, we had a lot to chew on. Of course, Samsung wasn't going to be left behind either, and they announced their newest Exynos 5 Octa-core chip. All of these chips had several impressive things to grab our attention. Until we get our hands on any of these new chips, the new king of performance is mostly "up in the air" (although Intel's new CloverTrail+ seems poised to dominate).

Sadly, if today's newest rumor turns out to be true, we may actually end up disappointed by Samsung's newest Exynos offering. Supposedly, the next-gen octa-core chip from Sammy will actually be coming with a current-gen PowerVR graphics engine. This would be a strange departure from Samsung's previous M.O., and could potentially put a damper on positive performance. Here's a quote with some additional detail,

...the Octa probably uses a PowerVR 544MP3 GPU clocked at 533MHz. If true, this implies that the ARM Mali T-604 used in Exynos Dual devices like the Sammy Chromebook somehow couldn't meet Octa's needs, and that the higher-specced T-658 perhaps wasn't ready. It also suggests that Octa's graphical and GPU compute performance might lie somewhere between that of the third-gen iPad (A5X) and the fourth-gen (A6X).

Obviously there is no official confirmation on this from Samsung, but if it turns out to be true, it has us scratching our heads. Why would Samsung potentially hamper their shiny new eight-core super-chip by pairing it with older tech, especially when the PowerVR Series6 graphics chips debuted at CES this year? Of course, we don't know if this rumor is true, nor do we necessarily have all the correct info. There could be much more to this than meets the eye, and we will keep ours open for you in the future.

Source: Engadget
 

tech_head

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Depends on how far in the development cycle they were when if the PowerVR IP became available.
They may have started/completed their design with the old core. If the new core was just announced, then I'm 100% sure they started with the older core and may be close to samples or taping out. If they have completed layout or have made first silicon, then changing now is a completely new chip.
 

combatmedic870

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Any word on this? Im still curious why people would be worried about using a gpu that has never been used...
 
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