Samsung unveils Exynos 7 Octa 7870 chipset for mid-range smartphones

Samsung has made official the existence of a new mid-range chipset that will replace the current mid-range, Exynos 7580. The new chipset is called the Exynos 7 Octa 7870 and will be built by Samsung, using the 14nm FinFET process technology. Samsung states that the new Exynos 7 Octa 7870 processor consumes over 30 percent less power than mobile SoCs built with 28nm High-k Metal Gate process technology, but delivers the same level of performance. It also comes equipped with eight 1.6GHz Cortex-A53 cores and LTE Cat.6 2CA Modem, that supports 300Mbps downlink speed and FDD-TDD joint carrier aggregation as well. Coming to multimedia, the processor supports 1080p 60fps video playback and WUXGA (1920×1200) display resolution. The image signal processor (ISP) delivers high resolution images of up to 16MP for both rear and front cameras, or 8MP each in dual camera mode. Hopefully, the processor will find a home in more smartphones, than the current Exynos 7580 which is only available in the Samsung J7 smartphone. The 7870 seems destined for the next generation of mid-range devices according to Samsung Tomorrow  but for now, that could only be the next generation of the Samsung J7 smartphone as per previous leaks. Indeed, this sounds really familiar with what Qualcomm announced recently, when it the launched a new range of mid-range and budget Snapdragon chipsets. The closest competition comes from the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 that is a mid-range SoC which also happens to be the first chipset to be built on the 14nm process. The chipset is clocked at 2GHz  and features ARM Cortex-A53 cores in an octa-core set up. Handling the graphics is a Qualcomm Adreno 506 GPU with OpenGL ES 3.1+. Samsung is expected to take its Exynos 7 Octa 7870 chipset into mass production by first quarter of 2016.