Samsung is doing quite well in the smartphone and tablet marketplace, among other areas, and is at work developing new hardware. Phones such as the Galaxy S III run on their line of Exynos processors. The next evolution in that line of processors is the Exynos 5250 SoC, better known as the Exynos 5 Dual, which we should see in devices here very soon.
It happens to be the World’s first Cortex A15-based chip. Because of Samsung’s upcoming 11.8 inch Android tablet coming out later this year, they actually needed to wait for this processor in order to support the iPad-like 2560—1600 resolution. Here’s the specs of the processor:
- 1.7 Ghz Cortex A15 dual-core CPU
- Mali T604 GPU
- OpenGL ES 3.0
- OpenCL 1.1 full profile
- Support for WXQGA displays
- Wi-Fi display support
- 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth with 2 port 800 Mhz LPDDR3 RAM support
- 1080p 60 FPS video performance and VP8 codec decoder
- USB 3.0 support
So what does all this mean? Well, when it comes to the CPU, it has better performance than Qualcomm’s comparable Snapdragon S4 processor. This is due to the architecture of the Cortex chips. With the GPU, we’re seeing the next generation in the Mali line that is already onboard many smartphones and tablets currently on the market. Not to get too boring and into numerous technical details, but it’ll essentially mean better performance (notice a trend here?). OpenGL ES 3.0 OpenCL 1.1 are part of the GPU.
Thanks to all this increased performance, this also means the Exynos 5 Dual will support super high definition displays (2560×1600) and 12.8GB/second memory bandwidth, double that of the Exynos 4. Also will support 60fps 1080p video, Wifi-Display technology that allows you to stream content from your phone or tablet, wirelessly to your TV, Google’s VP8 codec for hardware acceleration, and USB 3.0 which supports much faster transfer speeds.
This new Exynos 5 processor looks to be quite the step up from it’s sibling. With support for better displays, performance, and graphics, it’s going to be really exciting to see how Samsung improves upon this in next year’s Exynos 5 Quad. Unless of course Apple decides to derail their plans and claim they infringed on their processor…