Samsung's Apple M1-rivaling Exynos SoC Powering Notebooks by H2-2021

[btarunr]

Samsung is readying a powerful Arm-based SoC rivaling Apple's groundbreaking M1 silicon, under its Exynos brand. This chip is being designed for thin-and-light notebooks, as well as premium tablets, essentially letting Samsung target Apple's MacBook (M1) and iPad Pro form-factors. Unlike Apple, Samsung won't be burdened with having to rally its ISV partners to develop specifically for its hardware; the company is preparing to launch notebooks in the second half of 2021 that are powered by a Windows 10 on Arm derivative. This would give the notebook access to all of the applications already developed for the OS, including Office and certain Adobe Creativity Suite apps. The M1-rivaling Exynos chip will pack the latest-generation 64-bit Arm CPU cores, as well as an integrated GPU designed by AMD.



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[R0H1T]

Windows 10 on Arm derivative

So about 10 or 20 I take it

give the notebook access to all of the applications already developed for the OS

 

[Space Lynx]

launch in second half of 2021...

notices that it also includes an AMD gpu too...

*laughs* samsung thinks it will be in stock...

did someone forget to send a memo to Samsung letting them know TSMC doesn't have time for them? last I checked Samsung can't make AMD gpu's...

TSMC doesn't even have enough time to make the chips automakers need, why would they set aside time for this little laptop in second half of 2021...

 

[R0H1T]

did someone forget to send a memo to Samsung letting them know TSMC doesn't have time for them?

You do realize Exynos is an SoC, that will be built on 5nm(?) Samsung foundry

as well as an integrated GPU designed by AMD.

AMD will be licensing out their GPU tech, much like some of the IP in semi custom designs.

 

[nguyen]

yeah sure Samsung's shitty Exynos can't even match Snapdragon SoC and they want to fight Apple's M1. Last I heard Samsung forgo designing their own custom ARM core so the next Exynos would use standard ARM CPU + AMD GPU

 

[Minus Infinity]

yeah sure Samsung's shitty Exynos can't even match Snapdragon SoC and they want to fight Apple's M1. Last I heard Samsung forgo designing their own custom ARM core so the next Exynos would use standard ARM CPU + AMD GPU

The current Exynos 2100 does indeed match the SD888, it's only the Mali GPU that's weak and Samsung are using AMD for GPU in the future, so that will no longer be a concern. Qualcomm should be the one that's worried going forward.

 

[nguyen]

The current Exynos 2100 does indeed match the SD888, it's only the Mali GPU that's weak and Samsung are using AMD for GPU in the future, so that will no longer be a concern. Qualcomm should be the one that's worried going forward.

Not really, the shitty Exynos 2100 can't compete with SD888, evidenced by the S21 Ultra that use SD888 in Korea+USA and Exynos everywhere else

 

[wolf]

2100 vs 888, wins in some tests, loses in others, on a balance of all scores it is generally considered roughly equal, but the 888 still has an 'edge', and would be desirable, a far cry from outright being the much worse chip to have in generations past, relative to the SD counterpart. I bought an S21 Ultra and spent... well frankly far too much time watching and reading comparisons, and the biggest takeaway is that Exynos users aren't getting properly screwed by a clearly inferior version this time, the experience is virtually identical overall. The biggest problem I see with the 2100 vs 888 is they have this history of much worse performance so the brand name Exynos has a lot of recovering to do. They need to match or beat the snapdragon again a few times in a row to really shake that off.

 

[watzupken]

yeah sure Samsung's shitty Exynos can't even match Snapdragon SoC and they want to fight Apple's M1. Last I heard Samsung forgo designing their own custom ARM core so the next Exynos would use standard ARM CPU + AMD GPU

The current Exynos is different from the Exynos from previous generations The difference being that Samsung canned their custom cores and now switching to pure ARM cores just like Qualcomm. The difference between Exynos and Snapdragon for this generation really boils down mostly to the GPU performance since both Exynos and SD are produced by Samsung's fab. Qualcomm always have an advantage when it comes to GPU performance. Considering the GPU used in Qualcomm's SOC was created by ATI many years back, I feel Samsung may have a good chance of turning the tide by going back to AMD for a newer GPU.

Having said that, I don't believe that Samsung can match the M1 in terms of performance even if they collaborated with AMD. At least not in this generation or the next. In actual gaming performance, the M1's iGPU is almost 2.5x faster than the fastest iGPU from AMD and Intel at this point in time, and that's in games that are not optimized for M1 chip. CPU wise, Taking what is available from ARM this year, and compare it with the CPU in the M1 chip, the results are clearly in favor of the M1 CPU.

 

[lexluthermiester]

the company is preparing to launch notebooks in the second half of 2021 that are powered by a Windows 10 on Arm derivative.

Ouch... That's a mistake. Android is the correct answer Samsung, Android. ChromeOS might be ok, but anything else will flop hard.

 

[Vya Domus]

Having said that, I don't believe that Samsung can match the M1 in terms of performance even if they collaborated with AMD. At least not in this generation or the next. In actual gaming performance, the M1's iGPU is almost 2.5x faster than the fastest iGPU from AMD and Intel at this point in time, and that's in games that are not optimized for M1 chip. CPU wise, Taking what is available from ARM this year, and compare it with the CPU in the M1 chip, the results are clearly in favor of the M1 CPU.

Slow down a little bit. M1's GPU is simply much larger (2x more shaders vs something like 4700U) and on a newer node, not to mention Vega is ancient. Even an 512 shader RDNA2 iGPU could match or even outperform M1's GPU, a 1024 shader GPU would obliterate it and 768 shader GPU would comfortably outperform it. Apple had an easy time with the likes of ARM and Qualcomm, not anymore.

 

[BorisDG]

The real beast is A14.

 

[1d10t]

Still not convincing this will trade blow against 8cX, let alone beat M1.

 

[Space Lynx]

You do realize Exynos is an SoC, that will be built on 5nm(?) Samsung foundry

AMD will be licensing out their GPU tech, much like some of the IP in semi custom designs.

I just assumed integrated AMD gpu meant TSMC still had to make it... but that makes more sense you are correct... my guess is it will be crap performance though. There is a reason TSMC is untouchable in performance.

 

[Raiden85]

They can barley keep up with iPhone CPUs let alone match M1.

 

[Vya Domus]

They can barley keep up with iPhone CPUs let alone match M1.

Both A14 and M1 use the exact same CPU cores.

 

[Kyaaaaaaaaaa]

M1 rivaling? With X1 and A78? Or with their (dead) Mongooses? like lol

 

[john_]

Samsung doesn't really have to rival M1. Only to offer the best SOC for Windows on ARM. People wanting to buy a laptop that runs Windows, is ultra light, always connected and runs 20 hours out of battery, will not care about benchmarks against M1, so long the experience feels smooth and fast (enough). What could spoil here the fun, would be a slow iGPU, because many like to also play mobile games. That's where AMD's licenced GPU tech comes in.

 

[Punkenjoy]

So much CPU engineer and insider there !

But before saying anything, just consider that no chip manufacturer are making the fastest chip they could come up with. Design is all about balancing all the thing you need to deal with. Power, manufacturing cost, Development time, Chip audience, Release date, etc.)

All chips are made by balancing many factor and are compromise.

But anyway. Is it that surprising if Samsung release in a year a CPU that will compete with a CPU that will be on the market for 2 years+? i don't think so. The funny things is all these pseudo CPU engineer said that apple could never match x86, then now it's done, nobody else can? lol

In this kind of the hill tech game, you are never safe at the top no matter who you are and you can't sit on your game for too long. Intel, Nvidia, AMD, Apple, Qualcomm, all of them can fall if they don't perform.