Samsung Exynos 5433 64-Bit Exists, but the Galaxy Note 4 Will Only Run in 32-Bit Mode

Samsung launched its latest flagship Galaxy Note 4 phone at IFA 2014 a few weeks ago, and the handset has been said to be running on an Exynos 5433 chip (although Samsung has been quite restrained with the details).

However, a piece of leaked source code reveals that the processor is actually an ARMv8/64-bit chip. All that is nice and nifty, but it appears that, inside the phone, the chip will run only in 32-bit mode. Or at least only for the time being.

Samsung Exynos 5433 detailed

Anyway, for those of you who are curious about the technical specifications regarding the Exynos 5433 chip, here they are. The SoC includes four 1.3GHz Cortex A53 cores, four 1.9GHz Cortex A57 cores, plus an all-new Mali-T760 GPU (as seen at Sam Mobile). The new chip takes advantage of the familiar big.Little blueprint, with the Cortex A53 cores (which are successors for the Cortex A7) being utilized for less demanding tasks, while the Cortex A57 cores (successors of the Cortex A15) take up the more power-hungry endeavors. The CPU inside is based on a 20nm process and comes bearing a list of benefits that bring about improved power consumption, power efficiency, and higher performance.

The Mali-T760 GPU is capable of supporting up to 16 cores, although the latest information available to us reveals that the graphics card will probably end up supporting only half of that number, each clocked at 700Mhz. Samsung might be saving up the 16-core version for future smartphones, such as the Galaxy S6 or Galaxy Note 5. Previously, ARM said that the Mail-T760 GPU would be comparable in performance with NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 processor, but they were probably referring to the 16-core version. The GPU comes equipped with support for the latest OPENGL ES 1.3 graphics API, and once Samsung upgrades the Galaxy Note 4 to Android L, the Android Extension Pack for enhanced graphics will probably be making an appearance too.

How come the Galaxy Note 4 will run a 32-bit chip?

As we mentioned above, for the time being, the chip inside the Galaxy Note 4 will run in 32-bit mode only, even if the possibility of running in 64-bit mode exists. Why did Samsung choose the 32-bit scenario? Well, it might be that the Note 4 will make a debut in the wild with Android 4.4 installed onboard and not Android L, which is the only version of the OS capable of sustaining 64-bit platforms.

Another possible reason is that the US version of the Galaxy Note will run a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805, which is a 32-bit ARMv7 chip, so Sammy wanted to homogenize its offerings. For the time being, both theories make sense, but we’ll have to wait and see which turns out to be the true one.

Samsung Galaxy Note to run on a 32-bit Exynos 5433
Image credits to Samsung

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