Since Android doesn’t technically offer support for 64-bit hardware yet, there was never much to rumors of Samsung’s Galaxy S5 packing a brand new Exynos processor built on the same architecture as Apple’s A7 chip.
But lo and behold, the 64-bit whispers are back on the table, this time nearly ready to develop into genuine rumbles. Samsung’s own official Exynos Twitter account is responsible for the surprising twist, as a cheesy pic depicting a mighty bull taking on a bullfighter (not so) subtly suggests next week’s Mobile World Congress/Unpacked announcement will be more than just about the S5.
Namely, an Exynos Infinity CPU is destined to also get unveiled, and possibly run Galaxy S5’s hardware show. Now, sure, nowhere does the text accompanying the image say the Infinity will be 64-bit. But at around the same time Samsung issued the teaser, a Linux kernel patch cropped up online, containing the magic words “Samsung GH7”, “arm64”, and “armv8”.
For the record, ARMv8-A is the instruction set architecture for 64-bit processors. Could it be a coincidence the two tidbits surfaced in the space of a measly few hours? To quote Brad Pitt in “The Counselor”, we’ve all heard of coincidences, we’ve just never seen one… so obvious.
The bigger question is why would Samsung be in such a hurry to out a 64-bit-powered smartphone when the real-world benefits will be minimal at first. I mean, it’s not like they intend to put north of 4 GB RAM on the S5, right?
Two possible answers. Either they know more than we do, and Google is hard at work on a KitKat sequel with extra benefits, or Samsung simply doesn’t want to bow down to Apple in the numbers war. Which do you dear readers reckon is more plausible?
Via [Twitter], [Spinics], [G for Games]