Samsung Exynos 5 Octa Smartphone Processor Unveiled at CES

Samsung has just raised the bar on what to expect from a smartphone chip. The newly-announced Exynos 5 Octa will include a startling 8 processor cores.

The next-generation chip will save power by dividing these cores up into two sets of four, and only using both sets when they are really needed.

Dr. Stephen Woo, president of device solutions for Samsung, revealed the Exynos 5 Octa chip during a keynote address at CES 2013, but was light on specifics. Still, Dr. Woo did say it is built on the ARM big.LITTLE / Cortex A15 architecture, and he promised that it will have twice the 3D performance of any of its competitors.

When smartphones and tablets running the Octa will be available is not yet known. However, it will surely appear in many of Samsung's own devices in the future, as its current mobile products run on earlier versions from the Exynos family. A good possibility is the Galaxy S IV, which is expected to be unveiled next month.

Samsung's announcment comes just two days after Nvidia took the wraps off the Tegra 4, a competing mobile processor.