Samsung Exynos Thread (big.LITTLE Octa-core)

[Enigmoid]

Sweepr: You should read anandtech Exynos 5433 review. The Mali T760MP8 is not really running at 700 mhz. There are more details in the article but under common usage it will be 600 mhz.

 

[Sweepr]

Sweepr: You should read anandtech Exynos 5433 review. The Mali T760MP8 is not really running at 700 mhz. There are more details in the article but under common usage it will be 600 mhz.

I did, according to the article ALU heavy workloads trigger the 700MHz frequency while more balanced workloads will run at a lower power 600MHz. They don't specify the clocks for each of the tests but given the power numbers I suspect GFXBench Manhattan triggers that 700MHz state while T-Rex doesn't?

On the other hand, Manhattan is up to 55% more ALU heavy depending on the scene of the benchmark.
...The result is that power draw in Manhattan on the 5433 is coming in at a whopping 6.07W, far ahead of the 5.35W that is consumed in the T-Rex test. Manhattan should actually be the less power hungry test on this architecture if the tests were to be run at the same frequency and voltages.

Some Koreans are saying 29fps MH / 59fps Trex. Not sure how accurate that is but the same source got the GeekBench results correct before it was public too.

Interesting, thanks for sharing. If true then Exynos 7420's Mali T760MP8 might be operating at a higher frequency (>800MHz?). I know Mali T760 is bandwidth efficient but perhaps there is a small boost from LPDDR4 too?

Improved performance and power efficiency due to both reduced bandwidth usage and increases in effective usable bandwidth by help of ARM Frame-Buffer Compression (AFBC).

 

[Sweepr]

New/Updated Exynos 7 Octa (Exynos 5433) Performance Review - Part 2

Here's Part 2 and 3 of the new/updated benchmarks I promised.

Clock per clock comparisons:
Exynos 5420 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.9GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 28nm
Exynos 5422 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.9GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 28nm
Exynos 5430 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.8GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 20nm
Exynos 5433 - 4x Cortex A57 @ 1.9GHz + 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.3GHz, 20nm

Apple A8 - 2x 'Enhanced' Cyclone cores @ 1.4GHz, 20nm
Atom Z3580 - 4x Silvermont cores @ 2.3GHz, 22nm
Atom Z3560 - 4x Silvermont cores @ 1.83GHz, 22nm
Tegra K1 - 4x Cortex A15 cores @ 2.3GHz, 28nm
Tegra K1 - 2x Denver cores @ 2.5GHz, 28nm
Snapdragon 810 - 4x Cortex A57 cores @ 2GHz + 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.5GHz, 20nm
Snadragon 805 - 4x Krait cores @ 2.7GHz, 28nm
Snapdragon 801 - 4x Krait cores @ 2.3/2.5GHz, 28nm
Snapdragon 615 - 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.54GHz + 4x Cortex A53 @ 1GHz, 28nm
Huawei Kirin 920 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.7GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 28nm

PCMark

- Work Performance Overall
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 4055
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 3621
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 2624

- Web Browsing
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 3676
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 3415
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 4768

- Video Playback
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 4438
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 3749
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 4814

- Photo Editing
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 4174
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 3540
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 3604

- Writing
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 3973
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 3795
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 573

Exynos 5433 is 40% faster than Snapdragon 805 at the web browsing test, 22% faster @ writing, 18% faster @ video playback. The photo editing scores is a mixed CPU and GPU test. Andrei/Ryan suspects the Exynos's lower score is caused by an issue with the OS libraries because Huawei Mate 7 (1.8GHz Cortex A15+1.3GHz Cortex A7 and Mali T628MP4) performs very well even though it packs a slower CPU/GPU combination than Exynos 5433.

Browsermark

Apple A8 (iPhone 6): 3153
Apple A8 (iPhone 6+): 3389
Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 2157
Atom Z3560 (Memo Pad ME572C): 1681

Here Exynos 5433 offers comparable performance to Apple A8/A8X and is clearly ahead of the other Android devices. 1.9GHz Exynos 5433 (A57/A53) is 50% faster than 1.9GHz Exynos 5420 (A15/A7) and 65% faster than Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4 LTE Cat6).

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Exynos 5420): 50%

Octane 2.0

Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 4042
Exynos 5430 (Galaxy Alpha): 4588
Tegra K1 Cortex A15 (Shield Tablet): 7628
Atom Z3580 (Dell Venue 8 7000): 7385
Snapdragon 615 (HTC Desire 820): 3418
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Reference Platform): 7739

1.9GHz Exynos 5433 (A57/A53) is 2.05x as fast as 1.9GHz Exynos 5420 (A15/A7). Surprinsingly the slightly lower clocked 1.8GHz Exynos 5430 also posts better scores than Exynos 5420. Thanks to the IPC improvement a 1.9GHz Cortex A57 (Exynos 5433) also manages to beat a higher-clocked 2.3GHz Cortex A15 (Tegra K1) by 9%. Exynos 5433 is also 7.3% faster than the higher-clocked Snapdragon 810 Tablet Reference Platform.

Atom Z3580 also does a good job here, the soon to be released $199 ASUS Zenphone 2 should be cheaper than some Snapdragon 615 devices while offering better all around performance.

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Tegra K1): 31.9%

WebXPRT

Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab S 10.5): 306
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 447
Tegra K1 Cortex A15 (Shield Tablet): 557
Apple A7 (iPad Air): 563
Apple A8 (iPhone 6): 570
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Reference Platform): 382

1.9GHz Exynos 5433 is 90% faster than 1.9GHz Exynos 5420 and 4.5% faster than 2.3GHz Tegra K1. Once again the higher-clocked Cortex A57 cores post similar scores to Apple's 'Enhanced' Cyclone cores. Snapdragon 810 is outperformed by 52.3%.

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Tegra K1): 26.5%

Kraken (Lower is Better)

Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 7.821,5
Exynos 5430 (Galaxy Alpha): 5056
Tegra K1 Cortex A15 (Shield Tablet): 4.296,7
Tegra K1 Denver (Nexus 9): 4030,5
Atom Z3580 (Dell Venue 8 7000): 5.334,7
Atom Z3560 (Memo Pad ME572C): 6.281
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 3.865,8

1.9GHz Exynos 5433 beats 2.3GHz Tegra K1 (Cortex A15) by 3.2%, confirming the IPC advantage of ARM's new ARMV8-A cores. Snapdragon 810 Tablet Reference Platform was 7% faster than Galaxy Note 4 Exynos here.

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Tegra K1): 25%

AnTuTu 5.6

Snapragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 48622
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 46939
Atom Z3560 (Memo Pad ME572C): 41856

Exynos 5433 is 27% faster than Snapdragon 805 @ CPU integer and 33,6 @ single-thread integer. The difference is smaller in floating-point, Exynos 5433 outperforms Snapdragon 805 by 7.7% @ CPU floating-point and 4.9% @ single-thread floating-point. RAM performance is up by 13.7% and 2D/3D performance is almost the same between the two chips.

AndEBench (Native)

Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 13804
Exynos 5422 (Galaxy S5): 15431
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4): 16124
Tegra K1 Cortex A15 (Shield Tablet): 17300
Tegra K1 Denver: 10598

Exynos 5433 is 44.2% faster than Exynos 5420 and 29% faster than Exynos 5422. Tegra K1 Cortex A15 is outperformed by 15%.

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Exynos 5422): 29%

 

[Sweepr]

New/Updated Exynos 7 Octa (Exynos 5433) Performance Review - Part 3

Clock per clock comparisons:
Exynos 5420 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.9GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 28nm
Exynos 5422 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.9GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 28nm
Exynos 5430 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.8GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 20nm
Exynos 5433 - 4x Cortex A57 @ 1.9GHz + 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.3GHz, 20nm

Apple A8 - 2x 'Enhanced' Cyclone cores @ 1.4GHz, 20nm
Atom Z3580 - 4x Silvermont cores @ 2.3GHz, 22nm
Atom Z3560 - 4x Silvermont cores @ 1.83GHz, 22nm
Tegra K1 - 4x Cortex A15 cores @ 2.3GHz, 28nm
Tegra K1 - 2x Denver cores @ 2.5GHz, 28nm
Snapdragon 810 - 4x Cortex A57 cores @ 2GHz + 4x Cortex A53 cores @ 1.5GHz, 20nm
Snadragon 805 - 4x Krait cores @ 2.7GHz, 28nm
Snapdragon 801 - 4x Krait cores @ 2.3/2.5GHz, 28nm
Snapdragon 615 - 4x Cortex A53 @ 1.54GHz + 4x Cortex A53 @ 1GHz, 28nm
Huawei Kirin 920 - 4x Cortex A15 @ 1.7GHz + 4x Cortex A7 @ 1.3GHz, 28nm

Basemark OS II

- Overall
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 790
Exynos 5430 (Galaxy Alpha): 944
Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 865
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 1775
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 1244
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 1090

Overall performance is up by 60% compared to Exynos 5420, what a difference a year can make. Compared to Exynos 5430 performance improves 46%.

- System
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 2062
Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 1542
Atom Z3580 (Dell Venue 8 7000): 1876
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 2036
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 2113
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 2242

- Memory
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 315
Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 419
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 1610
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 575
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 440

- Graphics
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 740
Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 1032
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 5376
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 2838
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 2263

- Web
Huawei Kirin 920 (Huawei Honor 6): 812
Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 838
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 562
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 695
Snapdragon 801 (Galaxy S5): 631

Exynos 5433 outperforms Snapdragon 805 by 33.5% @ Web. Compared to Snapdragon 810 the Exynos 5433 is 35% faster @ System and 65% faster @ web. Despite this, Snapdragon 810's big advantage in graphics and memory tests is enough to put it ahead of the bunch in the overall scores.

We'd like to mention that there has been a big overhaul in BaseMark OS II in a recent December release, fixing various issues regarding score computation, and it also introduced changes in the benchmarks themselves. As such, the new scores are not directly comparable to reviews published in the past.

I have still included Exynos 5420/5430 results from the older version of Basemark OS II but a clock per clock comparison with Exynos 5433 is not possible. Kirin 920 SoC does give an idea about how Cortex A15 compares to Cortex A57 in this benchmark though. Exynos 5433, Kirin 920, Snapdragon S801/S805/S810 and Atom Z3580 are running the newer version of this benchmark so they are directly comparable.

Vellamo 3.x

- Browser

@ Stock Samsung Browser

Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 3369

@ Chrome

Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 2770

Exynos 5433 is 35.3% faster than Snapdragon 805 @ Samsung Stock Browser and 20.3% faster @ Chrome.

- Multicore

Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 2253
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 1522
Exynos 5430 (Galaxy Alpha): 1679

Exynos 5433 (1.9GHz) is 44.8% faster than the slightly lower clocked Exynos 5430 (1.8GHz), mostly due to the Cortex A57 IPC improvement (compared to previous Cortex A15). Snapdragon 805 is outperformed by 59.7%. Exynos Galaxy Note 4 manages to outperforms Qualcomm's S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform by 8%. Vellamo's multicore subscore includes a series of MT CPU and RAM benchmarks.

- Metal

Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 2286
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note Edge): 1813
Exynos 5430 (Galaxy Alpha): 1577

Exynos 5433 (1.9GHz) outperforms Exynos 5430 (1.8GHz) by 24.6%. Qualcomm's S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform comes out on top in this test. Vellamo's Metal subscore includes CPU, memory and storage tests.

Passmark

- CPU Score

Exynos 5420 (Samsung Galaxy Note 3 SM-N9000Q): 17021
Snapdragon 805 (Galaxy Note 4 N910G): 17754
Tegra K1 Cortex A15 (Shield Tablet): 25448
Tegra K1 Denver (Nexus 9): 33506

Exynos 5433 (1.9GHz) is 66.8% faster than Exynos 5420 (1.9GHz) and 12.5% faster than Tegra K1 Cortex A15 (2.3GHz). Tegra K1 Denver is the fastest of the bunch.

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Tegra K1): 36.1%

3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited - Physics Score

Exynos 5420 (Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 WiFi Version): 13904
Snapdragon 810 (Qualcomm S810 MDP/T Tablet Reference Platform): 12136
Snapdragon 801 (Xperia Z3): 13674
Snapdragon 615 (HTC Desire 820): 8973
Apple A8 (iPhone 6+): 9473

Exynos 5433 (1.9GHz) is 40% faster than Exynos 5420 (1.9GHz) and 60% faster than Snapdragon 810 (2GHz).

Cortex A57 clock-per-clock advantage (relative to Cortex A15 - Exynos 5420): 40%

Super Pi (Lower is Better)

OMAP 4460 (Dual-core Cortex A9 @ 1.2GHz): 24.251 seconds

Not a lot to say here but it's impressive how much ARM mobile SoCs advanced in terms of performance in only 3 years.

SciMark 2.0a (C native)

All tests were performed under Android 4.4.4 KitKat (Samsung Touchwiz UI - Stock). I will verify if the Lollipop update improves performance in the future (from what I read it does).

 

[Sweepr]

It's official, the next Exynos 7 Octa is a 14nm SoC.

Samsung Electronics - The industry's first mass production 14 nm mobile AP

Samsung announced the commencement of mass-production of Exynos 7 series mobile SoCs, the first to be built on the company's swanky 14 nanometer FinFET silicon fabrication process. The chip will be formally launched in the run up to launch of Samsung's next-generation flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S6. Samsung now has the only active semiconductor fab, other than Intel, to get its silicon lithography down to 14 nm.

Unlike with some previous generations of Galaxy S-series devices, in which the company's homebrew Exynos family of chips drove non-LTE versions of the device, while Qualcomm Snapdragon chips were used to drive the LTE versions, Samsung could deploy Exynos 7 on both variants.

There are no performance figures on the Exynos 7 yet, but Samsung claims that with the 14 nm process, power consumption is down by 35 percent over the previous generation, and "productivity" is up by 30 percent. The Exynos 7 is expected to be a 64-bit ARM big.LITTLE chip, with enough horsepower to drive 1440p smartphones and 4K Ultra HD tablets.

While the Exynos 7 Octa processor lineup will be among the first to see the shift from 20nm to 14nm, Samsung says the technology will be used in additional products later in 2015.

Source (Original - Korean): www.samsung.co.kr/about/newsView.do?seq=128900
Source (Google Translator): http://translate.google.com/transla...ww.samsung.co.kr/about/newsView.do?seq=128900
Via: www.nextpowerup.com/news/18159/samsung-begins-mass-production-of-exynos-7.html
http://liliputing.com/2015/02/samsung-begins-producing-14nm-exynos-7-octa-processors.html

 

[witeken]

Commencement of mass production for a phone that will be released quite soon? Will there be versions of the S6 with other SoCs?

 

[code65536]

Already? It seems like just yesterday that we started using 20nm, and 14nm is already starting mass production?? I mean, even Intel is just starting to trickle out 14nm.

Did Samsung just substantially shrink Intel's process lead, or is this press release full of hot air?

 

[witeken]

Already? It seems like just yesterday that we started using 20nm, and 14nm is already starting mass production?? I mean, even Intel is just starting to trickle out 14nm.

Did Samsung just substantially shrink Intel's process lead, or is this press release full of hot air?

There 2 things to consider:

1) Transistor and process characteristics. What Samsung calls 14nm (st gen FinFET, -15% shrink) is vastly different from what Intel calls 14nm (2nd gen FinFET -55% shrink).

2) Quantity. The SGS6 is only a single phone. There already multiple Broadwells on the market since November with numerous announcements at CES for Q1 availability, with BDW-H and Iris coming in Q2, SKL-S/K in Q3 and SKL-U/Y(/H?) in Q4 (and BDW-E in Q1'16).

So when SKL is available, only then will TSMC start its production, so 14/16 GPUs, and really the bulk of the 20+FF volume (lower tier products), will launch in '16 (Qualcomm, MediaTek, AMD).

But I guess it's nonetheless a pretty good accomplishment of Samsung that it can launch its FinFET version of 20nm less than a year after the regular 20nm. Maybe the foundries' 10nm node will indeed launch in 2017 in good volume.

 

[Andrei.]

Already? It seems like just yesterday that we started using 20nm, and 14nm is already starting mass production?? I mean, even Intel is just starting to trickle out 14nm.

Did Samsung just substantially shrink Intel's process lead, or is this press release full of hot air?

20nm at Samsung was considerably late. Remember the rumours about the S5? It was supposed to come with the 5430, but that didn't end up shipping till August.

 

[krumme]

Commencement of mass production for a phone that will be released quite soon? Will there be versions of the S6 with other SoCs?

Why constantly downplay this? Its here alright and far earlier than we thought just 6 month ago. We are seeing a huge change here imo.
Look eg how qcom reduced their forecast.

But anyway its great news ! I can officially say this now:
I plan to merry this Soc.

 

[Arachnotronic]

There 2 things to consider:

1) Transistor and process characteristics. What Samsung calls 14nm (st gen FinFET, -15% shrink) is vastly different from what Intel calls 14nm (2nd gen FinFET -55% shrink).

2) Quantity. The SGS6 is only a single phone. There already multiple Broadwells on the market since November with numerous announcements at CES for Q1 availability, with BDW-H and Iris coming in Q2, SKL-S/K in Q3 and SKL-U/Y(/H?) in Q4 (and BDW-E in Q1'16).

So when SKL is available, only then will TSMC start its production, so 14/16 GPUs, and really the bulk of the 20+FF volume (lower tier products), will launch in '16 (Qualcomm, MediaTek, AMD).

But I guess it's nonetheless a pretty good accomplishment of Samsung that it can launch its FinFET version of 20nm less than a year after the regular 20nm. Maybe the foundries' 10nm node will indeed launch in 2017 in good volume.

Who cares?

Intel is still shipping 22nm phone parts and won't have a 14nm phone part until 2016.

 

[witeken]

Who cares, indeed ? It are low performance phone SoCs. No GPUs, no APUs, no IGPs, no FPGAs, no CPUs.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Who cares, indeed ? It are low performance phone SoCs. No GPUs, no APUs, no IGPs, no FPGAs, no CPUs.

Phone SoCs integrate CPUs and GPUs.

 

[III-V]

Why constantly downplay this? Its here alright and far earlier than we thought just 6 month ago. We are seeing a huge change here imo.
Look eg how qcom reduced their forecast.

But anyway its great news ! I can officially say this now:
I plan to merry this Soc.

Er, where was the downplay in that comment?

 

[krumme]

Er, where was the downplay in that comment?

Ahh no big deal. But commencement in itallic is skewing the news. The point is the lp soc is here in what seems to be sizable quantities. Firstly the node came far faster than what most anticipated. Then the yield seems to be okey what was questioned just a few weeks ago. Add the talk about not beeing true 14nm is crap if we look at actual density of 20nm vs intel 20nm as hand de vries have indicated recently.
For low power soc samsung is simply in front now for 2015.
But comparing it to intel process is comparing to a high power node. It is comparing apples to oranges. And i perfectly agree with witeken here. Intel is perfectly covered where its own profit is. And that what matters for them.

 

[dawheat]

Who cares?

Intel is still shipping 22nm phone parts and won't have a 14nm phone part until 2016.

Agree, people get hung up on the process sometimes at the expense of real world results. If early numbers hold up, the 7420 will outperform the S810 and do so with less heat. Possibly less power though that's still tbd.

Does Intel have anything in 1H 2015 that will perform competitively in a smartphone power profile? I imagine only the A8 will be competitive in phones with the A9 taking back the crown in Sept.

 

[witeken]

Does Intel have anything in 1H 2015 that will perform competitively in a smartphone power profile?

Cherry Trail, but that one's not coming to phones (but that has nothing to do with the CPU/GPU/power).

 

[Sweepr]

Here's an interesting article about Exynos and Samsung SoC history, from the 32-bit S5PC110 SoC (Exynos 3 Single) to the latest Exynos 5433/7420 (Exynos 7 Octa):

Exynos Past and Future: An Old Chip Comes of Age

Chipsets are arguably one of the main components that drive innovation forward in the mobile space. The formula is simple: the more processing power you have, the more things you can pull off efficiently. In the past 7 years, we’ve seen smartphone chipsets evolve from single-core CPUs clocked at 412MHz to our current behemoths of power with clock speeds over 2Ghz and up to 8 cores–all in a 64 bit package to boot.

Now Samsung’s solutions haven’t been as “stable” compared to the opposition. They have been extremely competitive in some cases, and in some they were top-notch choices. Sometimes, the OEM has dropped the ball. The first phone to see an Exynos chip was the original Galaxy S. Ever since, their major releases have offered an Exynos variant in some form or another. If a chipset’s grace comes from the performance it provides, off the bat we would be justified in being skeptical of Samsung. The TouchWiz user interface was overly heavy and bloated for several years, dragging down system performance. They sought out to fix that in their Lollipop builds, and we analyzed TouchWiz’s 5.0 performance in the past with excellent results. Nevertheless, they are primarily a hardware manufacturer, and thus their expertise would understandably be focused on the phone’s components rather than the software they power.

So what made Samsung’s offerings so special? How did they innovate, if at all? And where are they heading with their 2015 releases?

http://www.xda-developers.com/exynos-past-and-future-an-old-chip-comes-of-age

This also brings up the question, where are they going next? The Exynos 7420 is already relatively high-clocked at 2.1GHz, I'm not sure if they can push A57/A53 much further. Samsung was the first to A57/A53 and Qualcomm is shipping A72 in consumer devices in the second half of this year. For those who missed, Mediatek is also doing it, the MT8173 is a 2+4 big.LITTLE A72/A53 and could be their rumoured 16nm FF chip. The SoC powering Galaxy Note 5 in Q4/2015 could be one of (if not the) first 14nm 4+4 big.LITTLE A72/A53 SoC.

On the other hand the first A72 licensees are HiSilicon, MediaTek and Rockchip (no mention of Samsung) and it's a known fact that Samsung has been developing a custom ARM core for quite some time now, perhaps it will finally debut later this year. Either way, interesting times ahead.

Ps: Another Exynos 5433 vs Exynos 7420 vs Snapdragon 810 comparison:

- Geekbench 3
Snapdragon 810 @ LG G Flex 2 (64-bit Android 5.0.1): 3965 MT / 1222 ST
Exynos 7420 @ Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (64-bit Android 5.0.2): 5375 MT / 1495 ST
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 4.4.4): 4576 MT / 1298 ST

- AnTuTu
Snapdragon 810 @ LG G Flex 2 (64-bit Android 5.0.1): 54251
Exynos 7420 @ Samsung Galaxy S6 (64-bit Android 5.0.2): 60978
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 4.4.4): 52219
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 5.0.2): 55204

- 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (Overall)
Snapdragon 810 @ LG G Flex 2 (64-bit Android 5.0.1): 22048
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 4.4.4): 20276

 

[oobydoobydoo]

Exynos has come a long way since I bought a Galaxy S4 in April 2013... back then even Snapdragon 600 was walking all over Exynos in the GPU department. CPU they were pretty much even.



I don't know why people keep saying Samsung's 14nm isn't "real" 14nm... the density is comparable (favorably) with intel's 14nm and it appears to run much cooler and leak less...

 

[witeken]

I don't know why people keep saying Samsung's 14nm isn't "real" 14nm... the density is comparable (favorably) with intel's 14nm and it appears to run much cooler and leak less...

All wrong.

 

[jdubs03]

Here's an interesting article about Exynos and Samsung SoC history, from the 32-bit S5PC110 SoC (Exynos 3 Single) to the latest Exynos 5433/7420 (Exynos 7 Octa):

Exynos Past and Future: An Old Chip Comes of Age





http://www.xda-developers.com/exynos-past-and-future-an-old-chip-comes-of-age

This also brings up the question, where are they going next? The Exynos 7420 is already relatively high-clocked at 2.1GHz, I'm not sure if they can push A57/A53 much further. Samsung was the first to A57/A53 and Qualcomm is shipping A72 in consumer devices in the second half of this year. For those who missed, Mediatek is also doing it, the MT8173 is a 2+4 big.LITTLE A72/A53 and could be their rumoured 16nm FF chip. The SoC powering Galaxy Note 5 in Q4/2015 could be one of (if not the) first 14nm 4+4 big.LITTLE A72/A53 SoC.

On the other hand the first A72 licensees are HiSilicon, MediaTek and Rockchip (no mention of Samsung) and it's a known fact that Samsung has been developing a custom ARM core for quite some time now, perhaps it will finally debut later this year. Either way, interesting times ahead.

Ps: Another Exynos 5433 vs Exynos 7420 vs Snapdragon 810 comparison:

- Geekbench 3
Snapdragon 810 @ LG G Flex 2 (64-bit Android 5.0.1): 3965 MT / 1222 ST
Exynos 7420 @ Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge (64-bit Android 5.0.2): 5375 MT / 1495 ST
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 4.4.4): 4576 MT / 1298 ST

- AnTuTu
Snapdragon 810 @ LG G Flex 2 (64-bit Android 5.0.1): 54251
Exynos 7420 @ Samsung Galaxy S6 (64-bit Android 5.0.2): 60978
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 4.4.4): 52219
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 5.0.2): 55204

- 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited (Overall)
Snapdragon 810 @ LG G Flex 2 (64-bit Android 5.0.1): 22048
Exynos 5433 @ Galaxy Note 4 (32-bit Android 4.4.4): 20276

The Exynos 7420 for sure looks like a great chip considering all of the roadmaps from the past year, it offers a decent bump over the 5433, and is only out 6 months later. An A72 version for the Note 5 would make sense and while single-core won't challenge something like the A9 (and the jury is still out for Tegra X1, the A72-Exynos being a bit higher), it could be close to 2x that of the S801 in some benches; along with pretty massive multi-core scores.

 

[Sweepr]

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 2 8-inch and 9.7-inch specifications

The second generation of the Super AMOLED display-toting Galaxy Tab S tablets is in the works at Samsung, and as we revealed earlier this week, the Galaxy Tab S 2 will come in 8-inch and 9.7-inch flavors (with model numbers SM-T710 and SM-T810) and will be thinner than Apple’s iPad Air 2. Today, we have information of the full spec sheets of the two tablets, thanks to our trusty insiders.

Under the hood, our source tells us that both variants will be powered by an Exynos 5433 processor, though this might be upgraded to an Exynos 7420 because the tablets will run Android 5.0.2 out of the box and hence support 64-bit processing (something the Exynos 5433 lacks). Cat.6 LTE (up to 300 Mbps) connectivity will be on-board thanks to Samsung’s in-house LTE modem; battery capacities on the 8 and 9.7-inch models is said to be 3,580 mAh and 5,870 mAh, but these aren’t final just yet and could change before the tablets are released.

Other specs of the Galaxy Tab S 2 duo will include an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera, 3GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage expandable by up to 128GB through a microSD slot. The 8-inch model has dimensions of 198.2×134.5×5.4 and the 9.7-inch model comes in at 237.1×168.8×5.4, and both are considerably light at 260g and 407g.

...The Galaxy Tab S 2 looks like just the right upgrade over its predecessor, with Samsung fixing previous weak points like an outdated processor and a not-so-premium design. It remains to be seen when the two Tab S 2 tablets will be made official, though a mid-2015 release is likely.

The news writer is clearly not aware of this - there is evidence that Samsung will upgrade Exynos 5433 to AArch64:

Also in my initial article I shared my opinion that I doubted that Samsung would update the Exynos 5433 Note 4 to AArch64 - this was based on the fact that the kernel treats the SoC as an A7/A15 part and most of the software stack remained 32-bit. Events since then seem to point out that they will eventually upgrade it to 64-bit, since we're seeing official patches in upstream Linux with the chip being introduced with a full ARMv8 device tree. This is interesting to see and might point out that Samsung will go the effort to upgrade the BSPs to AArch64;

Considering Galaxy Note 3's Exynos 5420 powers the first-gen Galaxy Tab S (and not Galaxy S5's Exynos 5422 which was alredy on the market) it makes perfect sense to me that Exynos 5433 will end up in Galaxy Tab S 2.

www.sammobile.com/2015/02/19/exclusive-samsung-galaxy-tab-s-2-8-inch-and-9-7-inch-specifications

 

[krumme]

Samsung Galaxy Tab S 2 8-inch and 9.7-inch specifications





The news writer is clearly not aware of this - there is evidence that Samsung will upgrade Exynos 5433 to AArch64:



Considering Galaxy Note 3's Exynos 5420 powers the first-gen Galaxy Tab S (and not Galaxy S5's Exynos 5422 which was alredy on the market) it makes perfect sense to me that Exynos 5433 will end up in Galaxy Tab S 2.

www.sammobile.com/2015/02/19/exclusive-samsung-galaxy-tab-s-2-8-inch-and-9-7-inch-specifications

agree; The 14nm parts is more needed in s6 than in a huge tablet and the prior production volume of 5433 fits tab s2 it seems.

Damn i am not going fin fet less. And even a57 seems a bit little now. I want a72 14nm !!!! Lol i am still a sucker for cpu perf so not this tab then (i dont need it anyway but hey if its interesting on the soc side lol)

 

[Sweepr]

Some more Snapdragon 810 (LG G Flex 2) x Exynos 5433 (Samsung Galaxy Note 4) results:

CPU
Kraken: 4621 x 4162 (Lower is Better)
Browsermark: 2086 x 3234.5 (Higher is Better)
Vellamo 3.0: 4684 x 5054 (Higher is Better)

GPU
GFXBench Manhattan Offscreen: 21-22 x 17.5 FPS
GFXBench T-Rex Offscreen: 48 vs 38 FPS
BasemarkX High Quality (GPU):

Snapdragon 810 numbers from GSMArena and Engadget LG G Flex 2 reviews.

agree; The 14nm parts is more needed in s6 than in a huge tablet and the prior production volume of 5433 fits tab s2 it seems.

Damn i am not going fin fet less. And even a57 seems a bit little now. I want a72 14nm !!!! Lol i am still a sucker for cpu perf so not this tab then (i dont need it anyway but hey if its interesting on the soc side lol)

I think Exynos 5433 suits the 8'' model very well. It's 64-bit capable (if they want), faster than the A7-based $300-400 iPad Mini 2/3 and should have no problem competing with an A8-based iPad mini 4 (I doubt they will use A9 here).

For the 9.7'' model I wish they designed a custom tablet SoC. Tablets can tolerate higher TDPs so they could probably use the cheaper 20nm process (if 14nm is still too expensive for larger dies). Take Exynos 5433 and double the GPU capability (quad-core A57 @ 1.9GHz + Mali T760/860MP12 @ 500-700MHz) and you've got a ~140mm² chip @ 20nm (not that far from Apple A8's 128mm²) for larger Android tablets and Chromebooks.

 

[Sweepr]

The results from this Note 4 (Exynos 5433) vs Moto Maxx (S805) game performance comparison were quite surprising to me. If you look at the available synthetic graphics benchmarks for Android - Adreno 420 usually posts a single-digit (5-10%) performance advantage compared to Mali T760MP6, with some exceptions like BasemarkX High Quality.

Meanwhile, using the Gamebench app to analyse in-game performance @ demanding titles Exynos came out ahead in every game tested.

Here are the results:

Exynos 5433 vs Snapdragon 805
- Asphalt 8: 60 vs 29 FPS
- Dead Trigger 2: 45 vs 34 FPS
- GTA San Andreas: 26 vs 15 FPS
- Modern Combat 5: 29 vs 27 FPS
- N.O.V.A 3: 28 vs 24 FPS
- Real Racing 3: 30 vs 25 FPS

GTA San Andreas is a real bad port, I remmember playing it at ~10 FPS with a LG G3 @ Max settings. It pegs one core at 100% and barely touches the rest. Cortex A57's single thread advantage (compared to Krait) finally allows it to be playable/fluid at max settings inside a phone. The real surprise came from other titles, I didn't expect Mali T760MP6 to deliver better (and more consistent) performance in GPU intensive titles like Modern Combat 5 and Dead Trigger 2.

Perhaps it's time to include in-game performance results from the most demanding titles in Android phone and tablet reviews? I wish AnandTech did something like this @ Galaxy S6 (Exynos 7420) review, not just the usual 3DMark and GFXBench stuff.