US Galaxy S 4 confirmed as quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600
updated 11:44 am EDT, Sun March 17, 2013
Four cores clocked at faster speed than 'octo-core' version
Chip manufacturer Qualcomm confirmed on Friday that the US version of the recently announced Galaxy S 4 smartphone will come with a 1.9Ghz quad-core Snapdragon 600 processor, rather than the "octo-core" 8/4 processor Exynos 5 chip used in the international versions. The move is similar to the situation with the Galaxy S III, which in the US is a dual-core processor, with a quad-core model internationally.
The chip in the US Galaxy S 4 is the same as in the HTC One and LG Optimus G Pro. The new version of the Qualcomm Snapdragon can provide up to 40 percent better performance than the Snapdragon S4 Pro. The system on a chip (SoC) also includes a new version of the Adreno 320 GPU, and is coupled with LPDDR3 memory support.
The Exynos 5 in the international Galaxy S 4 couples four faster CPU cores, with four slower, but more power-efficient cores. In times of increased processor demands, the faster cores kick in to boost processing power with the Exynos architecture. No formal explanation has been given as to why the Exynos chip isn't being used in the US version.
