Samsung's Exynos 9820 SoC early samples could have TDP issues

The only two Mongoose M4 cores included with the upcoming Exynos 9820 may be indicative of TDP problems. (Source: Go4It)

Ice Universe informs that the first Exynos 9820 test samples got an unexpected core configuration that includes just two Mongoose M4 cores along with two Cortex-A76 and four Cortex-A55 cores from ARM. This suggests that Samsung may be having some TDP issues with the first test samples. Also, instead of Samsung's rumored in-house GPUs, the Exynos 9820 would be coupled with ARM's Mali-G76 GPU, at least in the upcoming Galaxy S10.

by Bogdan Solca, 2018/07/12

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The next gen Exynos 9820 SoC was rumored to come with Samsung’s in-house Mongoose M4 cores that should be faster than ARM’s Cortex-A76 counterparts, but the latest word on the street is that the flagship SoC will not include too many Mongoose M4 cores due to some wattage issues.

According to trusted leaker Ice Universe on Weibo/Twitter, the Exynos 9820 will feature the DynamIQ architecture, which combines two Mongoose M4 fast cores, 2 Cortex-A76 cores and 4 additional energy-efficient Cortex-A55 cores. Even though the leak does not mention anything related to frequencies, the ARM-A76 cores should be clocked at around 3.0 GHz, and the Mongoose M4 cores should end up clocked higher. However, these high clocks seem to be causing TDP issues and Samsung decided to include fewer M4 cores. Judging from previous flagship SoCs, the Exynos 9820 should allow for maximum clock speeds across all cores, and this will benefit demanding games, as well as benchmarks.

Moreover, WCCFTech claims that the next gen flagship mobile SoC will only include ARM’s Mali-G76 MP18 GPU, despite Samsung’s promises to include its in-house mobile GPUs in all 2019 mobile devices. This also seems to be related to the TDP problems.

It is probably too early to say if Samsung will stick to this core configuration, as the company has just started testing the Mongoose M4 prototypes and could further tweak the TDP issues. In any case, the Exynos 9820 SoC should be ready to launch along with the Galaxy S10/X handhelds in early 2019.