UPDATE: According to info provided via e-mail by Mr. Brangers from Chrome Unboxed, this is actually the ASUS Chromebook 434, not one of Google’s Chromebooks or anything of the sort. Geekbench apparently lists Chrome OS devices with “Google” in front of the board name, for some reason.
A new Google-made device has just surfaced on Geekbench, and it carries the “Rammus” codename. This is not the first time we’re seeing this device getting benchmarked, as a less powerful variant of it popped up in October last year.
The Google Rammus that appeared on Geekbench now, well, the listing is dated for January 30, actually comes with the Intel Core i7-8500Y quad-core processor, while the variant from back in October featured the Intel Core m3-8100Y chip. Needless to say, this new variant is more powerful, and it also comes with double the RAM, 8GB compared to 4GB.
This Google Rammus device also comes with Android 9 Pie pre-installed, while the listing says that the SoC is clocked at 4.20GHz. The device managed to score 4,054 points in the single-core, and 8,247 points in the multi-core test on Geekbench. The processor in question here is based on the Amber Lake microarchitecture, same as the one that surfaced in October, and both of them have the same 5W TDP rating, so the difference between them is not as big as it may seem at first.
Less Powerful “Google Rammus” Device
A “Google Rammus” device that surfaced back in October had both a less powerful processor and less RAM, while it came to Geekbench with Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which is an outdated version of Android at this point. Based on the version of Android, it is actually possible that this is an older model of one of Google’s devices, and also because it’s so similar to the Pixel Slate in terms of specs, though it comes with way less RAM.
That being said, the Intel m3-8100Y-powered “Google Rammus” device never became a reality, but for those of you who are interested, it managed to score 3,479 points in the single-core, and 6,312 points in the multi-core test on Geekbench. These benchmarking results actually give you a perfect example as to how close this particular Core m3 chip is to the Core i7 found in the new listing.
So, What’s The Deal With “Google Rammus”?
Well, this newly-listed Google Rammus device may actually become a reality at some point this year. It actually seems like this is a new version of Google’s Pixel Slate tablet, as the specifications do fit, to an extent. The weird part is, the OS, as the current Pixel Slate comes with Chrome OS out of the box, while this Geekbench listing claims that Android 9 Pie is pre-installed on the new device.
That is quite odd, but the Pixel Slate has full support for the Google Play Store and thus Android applications, so it is capable of running Android 9 Pie-based applications… that’s where the confusion may have originated, though it’s still quite weird that Geekbench is listing Android 9 Pie here, as that device will almost certainly ship with Chrome OS. On the other hand, the same happened with the Google Rammus device that appeared back in October, so… we’ll see what will happen.