Samsung Exynos Thread (big.LITTLE Octa-core)

[III-V]

It could be Apple. There is talk of Apple doing two iPhone releases this year; much like iPad 3 and 4.

Haven't heard that one. Hmm... guess we'll find out soon. Something big is gonna get released around March, and it'll probably be one of the two.

 

[Idontcare]

C. Demerjian over at Semi-Accurate claims a "major SoC" is in mass production on a 16/14nm FF process, and that the foundry in question has fixed their yield issues... lines up pretty well with the Exynos rumor.

Isn't that the guy who claimed Qualcomm was buying a fab and getting into the IDM business, and that he had it on good word (years ago) that Apple was ditching Intel for ARM? He either makes up his stories to ensure a timely paycheck (obvious conflict of interest is obvious) or his "sources" love playing with him and making a serious mockery of the whole affair.

 

[Sweepr]

New leak mentions a 14nm 64-bit octa-core CPU once again:

www.cnbeta.com/articles/364619.htm

If this is true then it will certainly give Samsung and Apple a leg up over the competition that depends on Qualcomm.

Agreed, they need to take advantage of this. Samsung is the only one who has a foundry business, a CPU division and makes phones.

 

[Sweepr]

Some Adreno 430 GFXBench scores:

https://gfxbench.com/device.jsp?ben...eno+430,+development+board)&testgroup=overall

Qualcomm states up to 30% better performance than S805's Adreno 420 so it seems about right.

T-Rex Offscreen:
- Adreno 430: 48.5 FPS
- Adreno 420: ~42 FPS
- Mali T760MP6 (Note 4): 37.6 FPS

- Adreno 430: 21.9 FPS
- Adreno 420: ~18 FPS
- Mali T760MP6 (Note 4): 17.1 FPS

~15-20% better performance than Adreno 420, ~28% better than Mali T760MP6 in this particular benchmark. Samsung could easily match this with a ~700MHz MP8 variant of Mali T760.

The best part about having a Galaxy S6 exclusively powered by Exynos is that Samsung doesn't have to care about maintaining a certain level of parity performance-wise with Qualcomm's SoC anymore (so that certain users don't get pissed). If that is true I hope they leverage their 14nm FF process advantage and target iPhone 6S levels of GPU performance, a Mali T760MP10 @ ~700MHz GPU would be great. That would also give them a competitive advantage next to S810 flagships from HTC, Sony, LG and others.

I think Samsung got the CPU side of the equation covered, Exynos 7420 should be clocked @ 2.1-2.5/1.8GHz (A57/A53) according to leaks, compared to S810's 1.96/1.56GHz (A57/A53) (rumoured to overheat @ 1.2-1.4GHz in its current iteration).

 

[Vesku]

Isn't that the guy who claimed Qualcomm was buying a fab and getting into the IDM business, and that he had it on good word (years ago) that Apple was ditching Intel for ARM? He either makes up his stories to ensure a timely paycheck (obvious conflict of interest is obvious) or his "sources" love playing with him and making a serious mockery of the whole affair.

My take on it is he mixes in some truthful information from sources with A LOT of guesses and armchair CEOing. At the very least he occasionally is fed accurate information on Nvidia, he seemed to have info on pre-release GTX 680 and heard about some of the troubles they were having with the Denver ARM core. So his Nvidia track record is probably "economist" level haven't seen any evidence he has any even spottily reliable sources for any other companies certainly not Qualcomm.

 

[Exophase]

New leak mentions a 14nm 64-bit octa-core CPU once again:

www.cnbeta.com/articles/364619.htm

Going to cast a lot of skepticism on this, unless the part has custom CPUs designed by Qualcomm. A > 8 ARM core part requires an interconnect that is poorly suited for mobile.

 

[Exophase]

Isn't that the guy who claimed Qualcomm was buying a fab and getting into the IDM business, and that he had it on good word (years ago) that Apple was ditching Intel for ARM? He either makes up his stories to ensure a timely paycheck (obvious conflict of interest is obvious) or his "sources" love playing with him and making a serious mockery of the whole affair.

Charlie's routinely fantastically wrong about things he seems pretty confident about, but he also legitimately breaks stories that end up being true and couldn't just be coincidences (for example, he's been pretty dead on about Project Denver since 2011, and that Erista would go back to ARM licensed cores) I think he has some genuine informants, but his analysis is usually terrible and his bias greatly distorts how he processes the information.

 

[Sweepr]

Snapdragon 810 will be used in some of Galaxy S6 variants. But not from a start in April/May. Exynos is incredible fast in S6

https://twitter.com/eldarmurtazin/status/559737327015456768

Info comes from Eldar Murtazin (Mobile-review editor in chief), who has a decent track record with unnanounced phones. Looks like Galaxy S6 will be exclusively powered by a very fast Exynos chip at launch but there will be some S810 variants later on.

1.9GHz/1.3GHz A57/A53 Exynos 5433 already feels fast inside the Galaxy Note 4, now a +2GHz/1.8GHz chip running a slimmed down TouchWiz UI @ Android Lollipop must really fly.

 

[Sweepr]

First Exynos 7420 (Galaxy S6) benchmark results out:

Geekbench 3 @ 64-bit
Single -core: 1520
Multi-core: 5478

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1780313

Single-core score already beats Apple A7, slightly worse than A8. Multi-core score blows other ARM mobile SoCs out of the water.

Here's my Exynos 5433/7410 results - Geekbench 3 @ 32-bit:

 

[Andrei.]

Don't mind if I join the discussion here.

vs the S810 in the Flex2:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1714816?baseline=1780313

I've actually heard the multi-core score goes up higher to 5600. We should have better idea once more scores get uploaded.

 

[dawheat]

First Exynos 7420 (Galaxy S6) benchmark results out:

Geekbench 3 @ 64-bit
Single -core: 1520
Multi-core: 5478

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/1780313

Single-core score already beats Apple A7, slightly worse than A8. Multi-core score blows other ARM mobile SoCs out of the water.

Here's my Exynos 5433/7410 results - Geekbench 3 @ 32-bit:

Nice find - impressive if true.

 

[Sweepr]

Don't mind if I join the discussion here.

vs the S810 in the Flex2:
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1714816?baseline=1780313

I've actually heard the multi-core score goes up higher to 5600. We should have better idea once more scores get uploaded.

Welcome Andrei, your knowledge/feedback is always appreciated.

Estimated frequency is ~2.1/1.5GHz A57/A53 (up 200MHz from Exynos 5433), different from earlier leaks, I wonder if those clock speeds are final.

Based on these early benchmarks we have a +20% CPU uplift and 10-15% higher clocks. Perhaps 5-10% gain comes from 64-bit and a bit higher sustained frequency under load?

 

[Andrei.]

Based on these early benchmarks we have a +20% CPU uplift and 10-15% higher clocks. Perhaps 5-10% gain comes from 64-bit and a bit higher sustained frequency under load?

64bit should add to the FP numbers and there should be some boost from the LPDDR4.

CPU perf is straightforward but they need to get power consumption down, that's where the 14nm will be interesting.

 

[Sweepr]

64bit should add to the FP numbers and there should be some boost from the LPDDR4.

CPU perf is straightforward but they need to get power consumption down, that's where the 14nm will be interesting.

Thanks for the input. Any idea on what the die sizes are for Exynos 5433 and Exynos 7420? +20% faster CPU than Exynos 5433 is good enough, especially if they can get power consumption down. Exynos 7420 should be a quite small and efficient chip @ 14nm.

 

[Sweepr]

Nice find - impressive if true.

That multi-core score is insane. It's almost twice iPhone 6's ~2900 MT score.

 

[R0H1T]

Any idea on what the die sizes are for Exynos 5433 and Exynos 7420? Exynos 7420 should be a quite small and efficient chip @ 14nm.

Has this been confirmed yet :\

 

[witeken]

That multi-core score is insane. It's almost twice iPhone 6's ~2900 MT score.

And so will power consumption be.

 

[Sweepr]

And so will power consumption be.

20nm Exynos 5433 (Note 4) has slightly worse battery life @ web browsing than a Snapdragon 805 (Note 4) but delivers much better performance. The Geekbench score indicates Exynos 7420 is clocked 200MHz higher its predecessor, I bet Samsung is playing safe to further reduce power consumption at 14nm.

Has this been confirmed yet

We have this statement from Samsung and various leaks:

We have started mass production wafers in 14-nanometer. So, in 14-nanometer, our progress is well on track, including process and the yields. Here we're talking when I mention yields being on track, this is for a very advanced product. It'll be our most advanced applications processor. Yielding at full specifications targets with all of the characteristics for speed and power as well.

It doesn't get more official than this till launch (or soon before).

 

[imported_ats]

That multi-core score is insane. It's almost twice iPhone 6's ~2900 MT score.

Well, its a good thing that GB multi scores are completely worthless then. No really, it isn't even worth running them as they represent basically nothing in the real world.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Well, its a good thing that GB multi scores are completely worthless then. No really, it isn't even worth running them as they represent basically nothing in the real world.

Why do you say this?

(I'm not arguing, I just would appreciate a detailed view as to why you believe so)

 

[krumme]

Well, its a good thing that GB multi scores are completely worthless then. No really, it isn't even worth running them as they represent basically nothing in the real world.

Well then its good single threaded perf. is up 20% and we probably get better battery life as well. 14nm spring 2015, thats really good for us consumers. And far earlier than most expected. Thats is big news and just fantastic. Finfet where it matters.

Now looking forward for the battery test !

 

[MisterLilBig]

I still wonder why the multi core score isn't higher, so much for being able to push all 8 cores at once. Always runs at 4 cores, anyone know of a bench that uses GlobalTaskSwitching, all cores at once? As all "basic" ARM designs, this is using just 4 cores. All other SoC's scale well except these!

(And obviously, I wouldn't think of using all 8 cores on a phone, but a tablet or an embbeded system, minipc, microconsole, etc..)

 

[Sweepr]

Some more evidence that Samsung chose Exynos 7420 for the Galaxy S6 (at least launch versions):

...Our lowered outlook for our semiconductor business for the second half of the fiscal year and our lowered EPS expectations, largely driven by the effects of a shift in share among OEMs at the premium tier, expectations that our Snapdragon 810 processor will not be in the upcoming design cycle of a large customer’s flagship device and heightened competition in China.

http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...B5C81/FY2015_1st_Quarter_Earnings_Release.pdf

 

[Idontcare]

Some more evidence that Samsung chose Exynos 7420 for the Galaxy S6 (at least launch versions):



http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...B5C81/FY2015_1st_Quarter_Earnings_Release.pdf

Not really sure what Qualcomm was thinking in terms of their 20nm product timeline to be honest.

They are already ~6 months late on getting their 20nm SoCs released to market, Apple has already scooped them and Samsung for 2014 and early 2015 with HUGE profits to show for it.

And Samsung is going to roll straight to 14nm. By the time Qualcomm's customers are finally fielding 20nm Snapdragons in volume, both Samsung and Apple will be on 16/14nm.

From a timeline perspective, Qualcomm whiffed this one big-time, even if snapdragon doesn't have heating issues they are still about 6-9 months behind the competition.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Some more evidence that Samsung chose Exynos 7420 for the Galaxy S6 (at least launch versions):



http://files.shareholder.com/downlo...B5C81/FY2015_1st_Quarter_Earnings_Release.pdf

Qualcomm looks completely out of the Galaxy S6 from an AP standpoint.

Expect Exynos + MDM9x35 in USA and Exynos + whatever-else in other regions.