A device identified by the model number SM-N960X — that implies it’s a member of Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note 9 family — has been spotted in the database of mobile benchmarking tool Geekbench earlier today, having been listed with a number of specs that don’t match any recent reports about the South Korean company’s next Android flagship. The benchmarking service listed the handset as being powered by the Exynos 9820, Samsung unannounced system-on-chip that still isn’t being mass-produced and is only expected to debut inside the Galaxy S10-series devices in the first quarter of 2019.
The SM-N960X also sports 4GB of RAM, 2GB less than what the base model of the Galaxy Note 9 is expected to feature, the same listing shows. Finally, the mobile device has been tested running Android 8.0 Oreo or a custom implementation of the thereof, the same operating system version that was pre-installed on the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus launched earlier this year. According to numerous reports that emerged online in recent months, all Galaxy Note 9 variants will be releasing with Samsung Experience 9.5 based on Android 8.1 Oreo. Despite its model number matching earlier leaks, the newly uncovered listing is likely either a result of spoofing, i.e. tricking Geekbench, or details a prototype device that Samsung is using to test the Exynos 9820.
The chip in question is rumored to break the 3GHz clock mark and come equipped with the Mali-G76 GPU from Arm, in addition to using the Cambridge-based firm’s DynamIQ architecture relying on two dual-core clusters and another energy-efficient quad-core configuration. As a result, the devices that utilize it are likely to be better at handling machine learning and general artificial intelligence applications. Samsung is also rumored to be working on its own Exynos-branded GPU but isn’t expected to be able to commercialize such a chip before 2020. The upcoming Galaxy Note 9 scheduled to be announced on August 9 will almost certainly be powered by the same Exynos 9810 found inside the Galaxy S9-series devices, i.e. its international variants will. The models set to be sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and China should ship with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 845 chip built on Samsung‘s second-generation 10nm FinFET process.