Samsung Galaxy S4 to Have Quad-core Processor in UK

[JMcEntegart]

Hope you didn't have your heart set on that octa-core CPU.

Samsung Galaxy S4 to Have Quad-core Processor in UK : Read more

 

[mayankleoboy1]

If USA and UK are getting the Snapdragon, then i suspect that the Exynos Octa may not be so good after all.

 

[blazorthon]

Quad core 1.9GHz CPU is confirmed for the S4 and there have been constant rumors of it being a Snapdragon, even confirmation of that at some point IIRC... That's almost confirmation of it being the Snapdragon 600 IIRC, the only new Snapdragon quad core that'll be out at the supposed time of the Galaxy S4's launch that runs at 1.9GHz.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]mayankleoboy1[/nom]If USA and UK are getting the Snapdragon, then i suspect that the Exynos Octa may not be so good after all.[/citation]

I thought that the USA continually doesn't get Exynos in *their* version of the Galaxy phones and such because Exynos doesn't support LTE like Snapdragon does.

Is this assumption incorrect?

 

[mayankleoboy1]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]I thought that the USA continually doesn't get Exynos in *their* version of the Galaxy phones and such because Exynos doesn't support LTE like Snapdragon does.Is this assumption incorrect?[/citation]

Correcter than my assumption

 

[redeemer]

It doesn't matter to me, cheap shiny plastics and gimmicky software no thanks. Amazing how powerful a tool like marketing is, no doubt this phone will sell as a result. Looking forward to the HTC One myself, this is a good year for the smartphone industry!

 

[mayankleoboy1]

^ +1

HTC one appears to be a better phone overall.

 

[guvnaguy]

Basically the same as the iPhone 5 launch. Way over-hyped, and turning out to be just an improvement on the specs. It certainly isn't a bad phone, though. I have an SG3 now and love it, would love to see how the G4 handles

I wonder though if the Quad-core in most situations (1 or 2 apps running) will be faster due to its higher clock speed, while the octa-core will be faster when running many apps at once?

 

[Bloob]

[citation][nom]guvnaguy[/nom]Basically the same as the iPhone 5 launch. Way over-hyped, and turning out to be just an improvement on the specs. It certainly isn't a bad phone, though. I have an SG3 now and love it, would love to see how the G4 handlesI wonder though if the Quad-core in most situations (1 or 2 apps running) will be faster due to its higher clock speed, while the octa-core will be faster when running many apps at once?[/citation]
The "Octa"-core is just 2 sets of quad-core, one for low-power operations, the other for high performance.

 

[blazorthon]

Basically the same as the iPhone 5 launch. Way over-hyped, and turning out to be just an improvement on the specs. It certainly isn't a bad phone, though. I have an SG3 now and love it, would love to see how the G4 handles

I wonder though if the Quad-core in most situations (1 or 2 apps running) will be faster due to its higher clock speed, while the octa-core will be faster when running many apps at once?

The octa-core is supposedly a dual-quad core with one quad-core Cortex A15 CPU and one quad-core Cortex A7 or A8 CPU (I don't remember the exact number, it's something like that and it's definitely lower than 9) and the quad core, if it is the Snapdragon 600, uses Krait. The quad core at 1.9GHz probably has very similar performance per core to the four A15 cores at 1.6GHz rather than having an advantage. Besides, even if the frequency was the only CPU performance difference between the two, I don't think going from 1.6GHz to 1.9GHz is enough of a jump to visibly see the difference unless there is a software problem. It's only an ~19% increase in frequency.

Also, IIRC, Samsung is only using the second, low power quad core in the Exynos 5 SoC in a similar manner to Nvidia Tegra 3's fifth low power core rather than using it to augment the performance of the more powerful Cortex A15 quad core CPU.

 

[kensingtron]

I think its best wait till the bench marks come in; throwing round all the Ghz numbers are just confusing the punters, who don't seem to understand we are dealing with different architectures. What I'm more concerned with is battery life with the lost of the low powered quad cores A7's.

As far as HTC one is concerned the battery has already failed as it can't be replaced. Lithium is only good for about 500 charges or 1.5 years. Then your HTC one is a paperweight in half a day. Planned obsolescence don't fall for it.

 

[atmos]

I'm not really bothered if its a Snapdragon or an Exynos 4x2 core or whatever.

Wanted that PowerVR 544MP3 GPU

 

[mayankleoboy1]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]The octa-core is supposedly a dual-quad core with one quad-core Cortex A15 CPU and one quad-core Cortex A7 or A8 CPU (I don't remember the exact number, it's something like that and it's definitely lower than 9) and the quad core, if it is the Snapdragon 600, uses Krait. The quad core at 1.9GHz probably has very similar performance per core to the four A15 cores at 1.6GHz rather than having an advantage.
......

Also, IIRC, Samsung is only using the second, low power quad core in the Exynos 5 SoC in a similar manner to Nvidia Tegra 3's fifth low power core rather than using it to augment the performance of the more powerful Cortex A15 quad core CPU. [/citation]

There were rumours that Samsung could choose to allow all the 8 cores to work together, based on workload. All that needed was a firmware update,there isnt anything inherent in the Big.little config that only 4 cores can work at a time.
I wonder if there are any highly multithreaded workloads on a smartphone that can use 8 cores.

Besides, even if the frequency was the only CPU performance difference between the two, I don't think going from 1.6GHz to 1.9GHz is enough of a jump to visibly see the difference unless there is a software problem. It's only an ~19% increase in frequency.

I think on a mobile, 300mhz is a big jump in clocks, with immediate benefits.

 

[NitzerEbb]

[citation][nom]redeemer[/nom]It doesn't matter to me, cheap shiny plastics and gimmicky software no thanks. Amazing how powerful a tool like marketing is, no doubt this phone will sell as a result. Looking forward to the HTC One myself, this is a good year for the smartphone industry![/citation]

The HTC One is not as good as the Samsung in many ways... no SD card slot, smaller screen, not as good of resolution, its another HTC phone that will let people down after its release.

 

[siddallj]

8 core would be nice for bragging rights

 

[Non-Euclidean]

[citation][nom]redeemer[/nom]It doesn't matter to me, cheap shiny plastics and gimmicky software no thanks. Amazing how powerful a tool like marketing is, no doubt this phone will sell as a result. Looking forward to the HTC One myself, this is a good year for the smartphone industry![/citation]

You would have to pay me to use a W8 phone.

 

[cknobman]

[citation][nom]Non-Euclidean[/nom]You would have to pay me to use a W8 phone.[/citation]

FYI HTC One is an android phone.

For everyone whining about Li-ion failing after a 1.5 years I am running a Nexus S with original battery right now which is over 2 years old and it is still going strong.

 

[brett1042002]

Nice phone, overall. Great for those who are at there contract end and looking for a good upgrade. The HTC One looks like a sweet phone too. By the time my contract is up the Galaxy S6 or S7 should be out .

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]The octa-core is supposedly a dual-quad core with one quad-core Cortex A15 CPU and one quad-core Cortex A7 or A8 CPU (I don't remember the exact number, it's something like that and it's definitely lower than 9) and the quad core, if it is the Snapdragon 600, uses Krait. The quad core at 1.9GHz probably has very similar performance per core to the four A15 cores at 1.6GHz rather than having an advantage.
......

Also, IIRC, Samsung is only using the second, low power quad core in the Exynos 5 SoC in a similar manner to Nvidia Tegra 3's fifth low power core rather than using it to augment the performance of the more powerful Cortex A15 quad core CPU. [/citation]

There were rumours that Samsung could choose to allow all the 8 cores to work together, based on workload. All that needed was a firmware update,there isnt anything inherent in the Big.little config that only 4 cores can work at a time.
I wonder if there are any highly multithreaded workloads on a smartphone that can use 8 cores.

Besides, even if the frequency was the only CPU performance difference between the two, I don't think going from 1.6GHz to 1.9GHz is enough of a jump to visibly see the difference unless there is a software problem. It's only an ~19% increase in frequency.

I think on a mobile, 300mhz is a big jump in clocks, with immediate benefits.

Those weren't rumors, at least not as far as it being possible. It is entirely possible as that is a feature of the big.LITTLE architecture. However, Samsung said that they wouldn't be using that feature on Exynos 5.

300MHz between these CPUs is, again, a mere 19% increase in frequency and it's also coming with an inferior performing architecture, so no, it's not likely to show any gains at all.

 

[hotice]

I would rather have the quad-core Qualcomm. Qualcomm has better experience with radio's and their's probably has better battery life and possibly better performance. Keep in mind the eight-core is not really eight-core but two four-core processors. One set is high power/speed and the lower is low power/speed. It uses either of the four at a time, never all eight at the same time. The Snapdragon quad-core processors can run on any number of cores as needed. I like the Qualcomm approach better.

 

[sundragon]

I would love to know the actual (not speculated) business reasons they choose to use a different processor for each region.

It used to be tied to the frequency used by the nation and compliance (per the article) but most of the LTE modems are software tunable.

I can't believe the US population aren't considered power users

 

[Bloob]

[citation][nom]NitzerEbb[/nom]The HTC One is not as good as the Samsung in many ways... no SD card slot, smaller screen, not as good of resolution, its another HTC phone that will let people down after its release.[/citation]
Umm, resolution for cameras mean very little, One takes pretty good pictures. For screens, One is 1080p RGB, unlike S4 which is PenTile (effectively 2/3 pixels). I'd rather have 720p RGB to be honest, I don't like to waste performance on invisible pixels.

 

[Parsian]

well i wouldnt mind it, since Snapdragon almost certainly a better processor to begin with. I dont even have an empirical data to back it up but it historically they have been superior.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]Bloob[/nom]Umm, resolution for cameras mean very little, One takes pretty good pictures. For screens, One is 1080p RGB, unlike S4 which is PenTile (effectively 2/3 pixels). I'd rather have 720p RGB to be honest, I don't like to waste performance on invisible pixels.[/citation]
I think you're making a confusion between sub-pixels and pixels. The Galaxy S4 does use a PenTile RGBG, so it does use 1/3 less sub-pixels than if if was an RGB LCD, but the amount of pixels remains the same. There aren't invisible pixels or whatever.

 

[lp231]

From Vr-Zone it says UK gets both versions, while most of Europe gets Qualcomm.
http://vr-zone.com/articles/qualcomm-galaxy-s-iv-heads-to-europe-while-asia-will-get-exynos-5-octa-variant/19324.html