The arms and spec race on mobile devices, especially Android, has really been supercharged lately and is almost getting out of hand. In all honesty does your smartphone really need an Octa-core processor to keep Facebook and YouTube running smooth? The answer would be a no. While we don’t know exactly what to expect in the foreseeable future, Qualcomm and MediaTek apparently won’t be dropping Oct-core SoC’s this year.

The first to dual-cores, then quad, and now 8-cores has been a big race. Everyone has their hands in the quad-core battle at the moment, and Samsung already announced their impressive sounding Exynos 5 Octa 8-core mobile processor back at CES this year. Now however, we’re hearing a few big names like Qualcomm and MediaTek won’t be venturing down that path until next year.

According to industry sources close to DigiTimes, Qualcomm has confirmed that they’ve put the brake on any 8-core processor plans this year, and instead will continue to lead the charge with their quad-core offering. The same holds true for MediaTek, who we’ve already seen making huge strides lately. This makes more sense given recent rumors that Samsung themselves will use the Snapdragon 600 for their Galaxy S IV, and only the European model will use their new 8-core chip.

Qualcomm is an industry leader and their new quad-core Snapdragon 600 already appears to put nearly everything available today (and coming soon) to shame, and we have proof right here. Then their 800 series is coming later this year promising huge gains. So while it might sound bad that they won’t have an 8-core to compete with Samsung, they probably don’t even need one. We can’t confirm these rumors at the moment, but hopefully more details surface in the coming days.

[via PocketDroid]

3 COMMENTS

  1. Yes I need and want an 8 core. Samsung’s implementation of the 8 core is supposed to improve battery efficiency by 70% (at least in theory, and I’m hoping it’s true or at least partially true) so yes, bring on all 8 cores.

  2. Enlighten me on what apps require an 8 core CPU… Ummm, that’s right ZERO. Complete overkill and quite rightly should be sand bagged until 2014 or maybe even 2015. So unnecessary

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