Exynos 4 Quad announced

Kevin OQuinn

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Samsung announced the Exynos 4 Quad today. I'm going to try to break down some of the features that make this SoC so impressive.

High-k Metal Gate technology - This is part of the reason for the die shrink to 32nm. The Exynos 4 Duo was built on a 45nm process. Using a smaller process improves power efficiency. What this technology does is allow the transistors to be smaller. The gate of a transistor is typically made of silicon dioxide. It's relatively cheap and easy to use. The problem is that as the transistors get smaller the gates leak, which increases power consumption and reduces reliability. There are a number of materials that perform better at these smaller sizes, and it's not clear which one Samsung is using specifically.

Hot-plug functionality - Allows each core to dynamically turn on and off as needed. If a core isn't being used, why should it be sucking power? This way they don't.

DVFS - Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling - A way to further improve battery life. It allows each core to independently respond to performance demands by adjusting voltage and clock speed on the fly as needed. So if you're doing something demanding the chip will run at full speed, but less demanding tasks will allow it to run slower while still maintaining good performance. You may also hear this referred to as aSMP, or asynchronous SMP, the term used by Qualcomm to describe the same functionality.

PMIC - Power Management Integrated Controller - Regulates power draw at the system level, giving even more control over power consumption. Not a whole lot of information is available about this.

It has full support for 1080p/30fps video recording as well as HDMI 1.4 output capability.

This post will be updated as more information is released.
 
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whitecomet

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proof is in the pudding but this with jelly bean would make for a powerful phone. It's at the point where specs almost do not matter tegra 3 s4 and this are at the point where if the app runs bad it's the coding not the processor. all of the stated chips and beyond are way more capable than running angy birds and words with friends and I am greteful that is the case.
 

sirheck

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Very similar to Intels (speed step) or AMD,s (cool&quiet).

Great way to conserve power and for the CPU,s to run cooler.

Though i bet it won't take long for you animals to root and rom
this sucker so it can be overclocked to run at max speed with all
four cores humming along if one wants.:p

Hmm?? How to fit my phase change cooler or my water cooling
set up to my phone? hehe
 

Kevin OQuinn

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Very similar to Intels (speed step) or AMD,s (cool&quiet).

Great way to conserve power and for the CPU,s to run cooler.

Though i bet it won't take long for you animals to root and rom
this sucker so it can be overclocked to run at max speed with all
four cores humming along if one wants.:p

Hmm?? How to fit my phase change cooler or my water cooling
set up to my phone? hehe

I'm sure someone will figure out how to change the governor and push the limits. We'll see 2.0ghz I'm sure. :)
 

UCLA 15

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Very exciting and interesting. Me-I was hoping for the A15 dual-core in the GS3, but this will be interesting as well. Samsung pulled off the GS2's Exynos so well that I have no doubt that even though this is "just" a A9 chip it will be a winner. Should handily beat Tegra 3, and it should come down to this and the S4 being the most advanced we've got until the A15 is ready.
 

Kevin OQuinn

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Very exciting and interesting. Me-I was hoping for the A15 dual-core in the GS3, but this will be interesting as well. Samsung pulled off the GS2's Exynos so well that I have no doubt that even though this is "just" a A9 chip it will be a winner. Should handily beat Tegra 3, and it should come down to this and the S4 being the most advanced we've got until the A15 is ready.

Technically speaking (and we are in the technical section LOL) the S4 is more advanced than the 4 Quad. Imagine throwing two more cores on the S4. <---dreaming about that. :)
 

UCLA 15

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Technically speaking (and we are in the technical section LOL) the S4 is more advanced than the 4 Quad. Imagine throwing two more cores on the S4. <---dreaming about that. :)

It most certainly is. It's honestly kind of a shame how little attention the S4 has been getting simply because the One S has been in the One X's shadow. I have high hopes for the 4412 because Samsung seems to be able to pull off great processors. The GS2's Exynos spec-wise wasn't exactly mindblowing even at the time it came out: it was just another dual-core A9. But it blew away the benchmarks at the time. Once the S4 hits higher profile devices, the tip of the processor world will be the S4, 4412, and the 5250. Tegra 3 is IMO not a part of this game, and 5250 should take the cake. I'm a big time believer in the importance of the GPU, and if the 5250 is paired with the supposedly domination-status GPU we've been hearing about, it will destroy all. My bets? GS3 gets the 4412, at least one version of the GS3 gets the S4, and the 5250 will debut on the ultra high-resolution 11.6" Samsung tablet that we've heard rumors about (explaining the use of the dominating GPU).
 

Kevin OQuinn

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It most certainly is. It's honestly kind of a shame how little attention the S4 has been getting simply because the One S has been in the One X's shadow. I have high hopes for the 4412 because Samsung seems to be able to pull off great processors. The GS2's Exynos spec-wise wasn't exactly mindblowing even at the time it came out: it was just another dual-core A9. But it blew away the benchmarks at the time. Once the S4 hits higher profile devices, the tip of the processor world will be the S4, 4412, and the 5250. Tegra 3 is IMO not a part of this game, and 5250 should take the cake. I'm a big time believer in the importance of the GPU, and if the 5250 is paired with the supposedly domination-status GPU we've been hearing about, it will destroy all. My bets? GS3 gets the 4412, at least one version of the GS3 gets the S4, and the 5250 will debut on the ultra high-resolution 11.6" Samsung tablet that we've heard rumors about (explaining the use of the dominating GPU).

Ahh...the Mali 604 I believe it is. I think I would rather see the PowerVR545, though.

nVidia will always have the software advantage, though.

I think the S4 is getting overlooked because it isn't record setting in any way. It's not the fastest, it doesn't have the most cores, and it's not made by Samsung or nVidia. And the Snapdragon S3 wasn't that impressive. It has integrated LTE and does what it's meant to do very well. We'll see quad-core parts and faster GPU's later this year. Qualcomm has to ride this architecture for a little while, so we have some time before people realize what it can do.
 

sirheck

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Makes me wonder how far Intel wants to get with their Medfield.

The Atom/Medfield arch is around 4 years old, but fairly competitive
so far. And of course the only 2 platforms i see them utilizing it on
is WMP and Android.
 

Kevin OQuinn

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Makes me wonder how far Intel wants to get with their Medfield.

The Atom/Medfield arch is around 4 years old, but fairly competitive
so far. And of course the only 2 platforms i see them utilizing it on
is WMP and Android.

Dual core version due early next year with a PowerVR SGX544MP2 GPU. Yeah, it's for windows tablets, but I bet we see some Android stuff built with it, too.

Also, given Intel's rapid development cycle (especially compared to ARM) they could have the dominant SoC in the next 2-3 years.
 

sirheck

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That's what i am thinking. I am surprised Intel hasn't jumped both feet in the smart phone world years ago. So far the half hearted dual core medfield is about neck and neck with the international HTC one series (benchmark wise).
 

Kevin OQuinn

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That's what i am thinking. I am surprised Intel hasn't jumped both feet in the smart phone world years ago. So far the half hearted dual core medfield is about neck and neck with the international HTC one series (benchmark wise).

Power consumption and packaging was a problem with earlier attempts.
 

mostlyDigital

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Anything in the announcement to imply (or even confirm) that the chipset will work with North American standards? CDMA?

Or should we expect to see the phone arrive with a Snapdragon 4?
 

Kevin OQuinn

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Anything in the announcement to imply (or even confirm) that the chipset will work with North American standards? CDMA?

Or should we expect to see the phone arrive with a Snapdragon 4?

Not sure about CDMA specifically, but the GSM bands in the international version will line up with AT&T here in the states.

Good bet that almost every version we see supported by the carriers here will have dual-core S4, because most carriers are going LTE.
 

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