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MediaTek to launch true 8-core, 2GHz MT6592 chipset in November?
Samsung may already have its 8-core Exynos 5 Octa offering, but the original "big.LITTLE" implementation means only up to four cores work together at any time -- either the Cortex-A15 quartet or its lesser Cortex-A7 counterpart. In other words, we'd rather rename the chipset range to something like "Exynos 5 Quad Dual." But according to recent intel coming from Taipei and Shenzhen, it looks like Taiwan's MediaTek is well on its way to ship a true 8-core mobile chipset in Q4 this year.
Samsung Galaxy S 4 with Exynos Octa-core: what's different?
More Info Samsung Galaxy S 4 review Samsung announces eight-core Exynos 5 'Octa' chip at CES Dual-SIM Samsung Galaxy S 4 launches in China with an Exynos 5 Octa inside Samsung's latest flagship, the Galaxy S 4, comes in two distinct flavors -- and they're both good. One uses the much-hyped Exynos Octa-core chip, while its identical twin takes advantage of the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600. In either case, the availability depends on where you live: the Exynos-powered I9500 is difficult to find in North America (at least for now), but our friends at Negri Electronics, an online retailer currently stocking the Octa-core device, gave us the opportunity to play with a unit for a few days. During our time with the device, we were able to get a solid feel for how this particular version of Samsung's flagship compares to the Snapdragon 600-powered model. So how does it hold up against its Qualcomm brother in terms of performance and battery life? Read on to find out.%Gallery-187610%
Samsung Exynos Octa now rocking LTE, destined for Korean market
When Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa was announced, it was believed to be compatible with 3G networks only. As such, the HSPA+ (global) version of the Galaxy S 4 was the only handset to feature the company's eight-core SoC -- the LTE model shipping with Qualcomm's 4G-capable, quad-core Snapdragon 600 instead. That's apparently changed, with the Korean giant tweeting that the Exynos 5 Octa now supports LTE on 20 bands. So why even make a Snapdragon 600 version of the Galaxy S 4, then? Perhaps Samsung can't produce as many chips as Qualcomm to meet the upcoming worldwide demand for its new flagship. This appears likely, with inews24 and new-samsunggalaxys4 reporting that the Exynos 5 Octa with LTE is currently reserved for Korean models only (SHV-E300S, SHV-E300K and SHV-E300L, to be exact). So, anyone fancy a trip to Seoul in the near future?
Huawei's Richard Yu confirms 8-core chip for 2H 2013, teases super slim P series phone for MWC
We never thought our day could get any better after Huawei's Consumer Business Group CEO Richard Yu became available again for our CES stage interview (there was originally a "last minute urgent conflict"), but our man was also kind enough to share a couple more scoops with us. First of all, Huawei will be joining Samsung at the octa-core Cortex-A15 party in the second half of this year, and given what Yu's told us earlier this week, our guess is that this will either be the HiSilicon K3V3 or a sister chipset, again manufactured by TSMC. The second scoop of the day was delivered fresh off the stage after the interview. Yu told us exclusively that at MWC next month, Huawei will be unveiling a super slim follow-up to the current P series Android phones. We asked if it'll be even thinner than 6.45mm (the thickness of the Alcatel One Touch Idol Ultra announced at CES), and Yu said yes. The exec added that the new phone will have a beautiful metallic body as well. Exciting times, right?
AMD FX-8350 review roundup: enthusiasts still won't be totally enthused
Now that AMD's fresh new FX processors based on the Piledriver architecture are out in the wild, the specialist hardware sites have seen fit to benchmark the top-lining FX-8350. Overall, the group feels that AMD has at least closed the gap a bit on Intel's Core juggernaut with a much better FX offering this time around, but overall the desktop CPU landscape remains unchanged -- with Intel still firmly at the top of the heap. Compared to its last-gen Bulldozer chips, "in every way, today's FX-8350 is better," according to Tom's Hardware: cheaper, up to 15 percent faster and more energy efficient. Still, while the new CPUs represent AMD's desktop high-end, they only stack up against Intel's mid-range Core i5 family, and even against that line-up they only edge ahead in heavily threaded testing. But if you "look beyond those specific (multithreaded) applications, Intel can pull away with a significant lead" due to its superior design, says Anantech. As for power consumption, unfortunately "the FX-8350 isn't even the same class of product as the Ivy Bridge Core i5 processors on this front," claims The Tech Report. Despite all that, Hot Hardware still sees several niches that AMD could fill with the new chips, as they'll provide "an easy upgrade path for existing AMD owners and more flexibility for overclocking, due to its unlocked multipliers." That means if you already have a Socket-AM3+ motherboard, you'll be able to do a cheap upgrade by swapping in the new CPU, and punching up the clock cycles might close the performance gap enjoyed by the Core i5. Finally, AMD also saw fit to bring the new chip in at a "very attractive" $195 by Hexus' reckoning, a much lower price than an earlier leak suggested. Despite that, however, the site says that AMD's flagship FX processor still "cannot tick as many desirable checkboxes as the competing Intel Core i5 chips." Feel free to scope all the sources below to make your own conclusions. Read - Tom's Hardware Read - Hot Hardware Read - AnandTech Read - Hexus Read - The Tech Report
AMD updates its FX processors: 8-core chip has 4GHz base clock, '15 percent' more oomph, $195 price tag
If you get the impression that AMD is diverting its energy away from traditional CPUs and towards APUs and fresher PC form factors such as all-in-ones, then you're certainly right -- but you're also slightly ahead of the game. The company promises there's a still a good few years of life left in its CPU-only chips and the AM3+ socket, and it's putting today's announcement forward as evidence. As of now, last year's eight-core FX-8150 has been superseded on retailers' shelves by the FX-8350, which notches the stock clock speed up to 4GHz, or 4.2GHz on turbo (alas with no obvious sign of that resonant mesh we once heard about). The full stack (codenamed 'Vishera') includes eight-, six- and four-core options, all based on the new Piledriver architecture which -- when combined with these higher clock speeds -- promises an overall performance uplift of around 15 percent versus the old Bulldozer cores. To be fair though, those Bulldozers weren't so snappy to begin with, and besides, the most significant performance claims with this upgrade relate to multi-threaded applications and a few gaming titles like Skyrim and Civ 5. Judging from the slide deck below, gains in other areas of performance may be lower -- perhaps in the region of seven percent -- so as usual we're going to roundup a bunch of reviews later today before we jump to any conclusions. If it turns out that stock performance alone isn't enough to sell these chips, then potential buyers still ought to check out FX's pricing relative to Intel -- not least because, as is typical, AMD sells overclockable chips at no extra charge. The top-end FX-8350 will hit the market at $195, which is not only cheaper than some earlier leaks suggested, but also $40 cheaper than an unlocked Core i5-3570K that has a lower clock speed and a smaller L3 cache -- although the relative performance of these two chips remains to be independently tested. Meanwhile, the entry-level quad-core FX-4300 will virtually match the price of a locked i3-2120 at $122, but can be readily overclocked to 5GHz with water-cooling. AMD is also making a few claims based on the cost of multiple components in a rig: for example, that you can spend $372 on an FX-8350 and Radeon HD 7850 combo that delivers a 25 to 70 percent gaming advantage over a similarly priced Core i5 3570K with a GeForce GTX 650 Ti. Again, stay tuned for our roundup and we'll figure out just how compelling this really is.
ARM's eight-core Mali GPUs promise 'dramatic' boost to mobile graphics
The current flagship for ARM's mobile graphics technology is undoubtedly the Galaxy S III, which contains a quad-core Mali 400 GPU and delivers some wild benchmark scores. By the end of this year though, we should see a whole new generation of Malis -- not just a Mali 450 for mid-range handsets, but also the quad-core T604 and the eight-core T658, which are based on ARM's Midgard architecture and are taking forever to come to market. Now, to whet our appetites even further, ARM has just added three more variants of the chip to its roster, which can almost be considered the next-next-generation: the quad-core T624, and the T628 and T678, which are both scalable up to eight cores. The trio's headline feature is that they promise to deliver at least 50 percent more performance with the same silicon area and power draw, with the explicit aim of delivering "console-class gaming," 4K and even 8K video workloads, as well as buttery 60fps user interfaces in phones, tablets and smart TVs. The premium T678 is aimed at tablets specifically, and in addition to allowing up to eight cores also doubles the number of math-crunching ALUs per core, which means that its compute performance (measured in gigaflops) is actually quadrupled compared to the T624. However, there's one other, subtler change which could turn out to be equally important -- read on for more.
AMD shaves 800 million transistors from Bulldozer chip, swears nothing's wrong
When a company cuts 40 percent of its transistors from an upcoming processor, one question comes to mind: why? According to ExtremeTech, AMD issued an update stating that its Bulldozer eight core / four module CPU would feature 1.2 billion transistors, as opposed to the previously stated two billion transistors. The reduction occurred despite the fact that the die size remains unchanged at 315 square millimeters -- putting it on par with AMD's lesser Llano chip -- and depriving the chip of valuable horsepower before I/O, an integrated memory controller or HyperTransport are added. When approached for comment, company representatives stated they were simply correcting a mistake regarding the chip's actual specifications. Before you bemoan the fate of the Bulldozer chip, remember that the drummer from Def Leppard has had a terrific musical career with only one arm, so what's the loss of several hundred million transistors to AMD's latest?
AMD 990FX motherboards from Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte get rounded up and ranked
HotHardware just herded up a trio of new mainboards equipped with AMD's 990FX chipset, which will support those famed 8-core Bulldozer-based processors when they finally arrive, as well as being compatible with existing Phenom II and Athlon II chips. All the boards had similarly high performance, good connectivity and plenty of overclocking and tweaking potential. However, the $229 Asus CrossHair V Formula inched its way to overall victory thanks to its reliability, attractive build and smart layout. The ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional placed second despite being cheaper at $200 and having richer connectivity, including FireWire and a front-mountable USB 3.0 panel. Finally, the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 lagged behind due to its excessive $250 price tag, a lack of color coding to help guide less experienced builders, plus an ugly and outdated BIOS utility. So, there you have it: if you want to gear up for your next Bulldozer-ready AMD build, the Asus and ASRock 990FX boards are ripe for picking. Check out the source link for the full comparisons and benchmarks.
AMD Llano quad-core APUs and Zambezi octa-core CPUs get priced, the former listed inside an HP dv6
Don't mistake the relative quietness from AMD on the APU front for inactivity. Ever since announcing the first shipment of its Llano Accelerated Processing Unit in April, the company's been working behind the scenes to ramp up availability to OEMs, and somewhere along the supply chain a gracious soul has been found who's leaked the bulk pricing for those chips. The new quad-core A Series processors start off at $110 for an A6-3450 and max out at $170 for an A8-3550P, but there's also mention of octa-core FX processors, which will weigh in at $320 a piece and reputedly compete with Intel's 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K. The latter are built around AMD's Bulldozer modules (wherein one module counts for two cores) and look to be the manifestation of the company's Zambezi CPUs, which could come without an integrated graphics processor as is available on the Llano and the rest of AMD's Fusion line. Just to whet appetites further, we've also come across an HP dv6 on an obscure German retail site, offering a 1.6GHz A6-3410MX APU, 6GB of RAM, and a most reasonable €590 price. There's obviously no promised delivery date, but this should be the first of many such appearances in the coming days as we build up towards Computex 2011. Something tells us AMD won't be holding back when the Taipei electronics show gets started. [Thanks, Shashwat and Vygantas]
