Samsung’s rumoured Exynos 2800 Chromebook chip sounds less like a side project and more like a shot at Job’s Mob.
Samsung appears to be preparing a Chromebook version of its 2028 Exynos 2800 SoC. The chip is expected to power a MacBook Neo rival and take on the Fruity Cargo Cult Apple’s base M7 chip.
Samsung reportedly has grander plans for the Chromebook Exynos 2800 than merely propping up a MacBook Neo competitor. Those plans appear to involve tackling Job’s Mob’s base M7 chip itself.
Tipster Schrödinger has been busy lately with Samsung silicon leaks, having revealed the CPU architecture of Samsung’s first 1.4nm chip. That chip is thought to use a 10-core CPU cluster in a two plus four plus four layout.
The two Prime cores are reportedly clocked at 4.50GHz. The four Performance cores are said to run at 3.80GHz, while the four Efficiency cores sit at 2.00GHz. The chip is expected to pack a chunky 96MB System Level Cache. It is said to pair that cache with an ultra-wide bus width to cut latency between the CPU cores and GPU.
Schrödinger did not name Samsung’s first 1.4nm chip in the earlier post. He has now corrected that omission with a follow-up. No one should be shocked that the chip is apparently the Exynos 2800, likely to appear in 2028.
Schrödinger has now posted more details about the Chromebook version of the Exynos 2800. The first point is that Samsung appears to be copying Job’s Mob’s trick of using phone-style chips in laptops.
However, Samsung’s ambitions are supposedly broader than just building a Chromebook with a posh badge. The company apparently wants to take on Job’s Mob’s base M7 chip as well.
The Chromebook version of the Exynos 2800 is said to take a big step with its Xclipse 980 GPU. That GPU will reportedly support path tracing instead of plain ray tracing.
“Path tracing is an advanced form of ray tracing that simulates realistic light interaction by tracing numerous, randomly bounced rays, resulting in superior photorealism but higher computational demands. Ray tracing (often hybrid) is faster, using fewer, targeted bounces for real-time applications like games, while path tracing is used for offline, high-quality rendering (movies, VFX),” Schrödinger said.
Schrödinger claims ray tracing takes shortcuts to reduce rendering load. By contrast, path tracing “adheres to realistic light and shadow physics, making it significantly more demanding”, Schrödinger said.
That would make Samsung’s Chromebook chip a rather ambitious bit of kit, assuming the leak survives contact with reality.
More should emerge about the mobile and Chromebook versions of the Exynos 2800. For now, Schrödinger is doing what good leakers do best, dangling enough silicon gossip to keep hardware nerds sniffing around.
