Samsung’s Galaxy Note phones have always been a powerhouse series, with the exception of the US variant of the original Galaxy Note that is. It’s also been one of the phones that’s pushed Samsung’s Exynos processor line ahead, and the Galaxy Note 3 looks to be no exception to this rule. Last year’s Galaxy Note II launched with the Exynos 4412, which made it one of the only phones that internationally runs both an Exynos chipset and an LTE modem, giving users the same spec sheet no matter what region they live in. This year Samsung is breaking its Galaxy Note 3 into 2 different models again, just like the first Galaxy Note did, and is launching it with the Snapdragon 800 in LTE markets, and the Exynos 5420 in non-LTE markets. This will mark the first time the Exynos 5420 is in a production device, and the first time Samsung will be delivering a true octo-core phone. While Samsung’s international Galaxy S4 features the Exynos 5410, that chip doesn’t appear to have support for Heterogeneous Multi-Processing like the Exynos 5420 does. If you’re looking for real-world performance and a visual look at just how this process works, check out ARM’s series of videos detailing how common apps can use 8 cores effectively and for better battery performance. SamMobile was able to obtain a CPU-Z reading from what appears to be a Chinese variant of the N900, which is the model number for the Galaxy Note 3 that ships with the Exynos 5420.
As you can see from the CPU-Z reading the N900 Galaxy Note 3 runs Android 4.3, an Exynos 5420 processor, about 12GB of internal storage and 2720MB of usable RAM. Given that Samsung announced that the Galaxy Note 3 would include 3GB of RAM when they showed the phone off at IFA 2 weeks ago, it’s no surprise to see this much RAM in the phone. What’s particularly interesting here, however, is seeing just how much RAM is being used by the phone. Since there’s only 392MB of free RAM, we’re seeing some serious RAM usage here, and one that shows just how efficient Android can be at caching apps that the user constantly uses. This allows for instant opening of apps, and clean updating of apps in the background without causing your phone to stutter or pause. Other than that 12GB of internal storage is a bit odd given that Samsung only announced 32GB or 64GB variants at IFA, however it’s possible that this is just a test model and doesn’t include the full spec storage. There will certainly be more information to come, as this international variant is scheduled to launch just next week on September 25th.