2025-bound Exynos SoC could be a nine-core monster with up to four Cortex-X cores
Multiple sources, including Qualcomm, have confirmed Samsung's Galaxy S23 series will exclusively use the recently announced Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. While there are a few sketchy rumours that say otherwise, the Exynos 2300's absence from discourse suggests it might not see the light of day anytime soon. There could be a good reason for it if a recent leak from Twitter user @OreXda is accurate.
An earlier report talked about Samsung developing a new SoC from the ground up specifically for Galaxy devices. Samsung supposedly assembled a "Dream Team" for the endeavour. Another Twitter leaker @RGcloudS explains it will use a tri-cluster, nine-core CPU in a 4-4-1 configuration with four Cortex-X cores, four Cortex-A7xx cores and one Cortex-A5xx core. The leaker adds there could be multiple SKUs for laptops and tablets. It could serve as much-needed competition for the 2024-bound Qualcomm/Nuvia chip.
The singular Cortex-A5xx core will supposedly handle background tasks, such as powering the AoD. An entire Cortex-X core will be earmarked for One UI and GoS, while the remaining ones will be used for day-to-day tasks, gaming, and other workloads. For the GPU, one can expect to see an RDNA 3 GPU with 8 CUs, making it faster than the iGPU on Ryzen 7000 processors. It will almost certainly be fabricated on an improved version of Samsung 3GAP or even the 2 nm node, provided it gets ready in time.
Alternatively, the mystery SoC could also opt for a 2-6-1 design with two Cortex-X and six Cortex-A7xx cores. It makes more sense for a smartphone, as four Cortex-X cores would impact battery life. Furthermore, Samsung is no stranger to designing hardware with two Cortex-X units as exhibited by two generations of Google Tensor chips. As always, one should treat the information with some scepticism, given it isn't due for launch anytime soon. Even @RGcloudS says the design is not final and could change later.
