[Q] Snapdragon 800: 8974 or 8974AB?

koeni · Sep 12, 2013

Which CPU does the Note 3 use? Please enlighten me

MSM8974 or MSM8974AB?

MSM8974: Adreno 330 @ 450Mhz and dual channel LPDDR3 @ 800Mhz

MSM8974AB: Adreno 330 @ 550Mhz and dual channel LPDDR3 @ 933Mhz

aliHTCDHD · Sep 12, 2013

Most likely the 8974, only the meizu mx3 will have the AB version check anandtech.com that'll have all the info on the Soc. It does however have a low power radio which should save battery.

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BarryH_GEG · Sep 12, 2013

That's an interesting question. If there's a "better" S-800 it would be odd that with Samsung's purchasing power with Qualcomm that they wouldn't use it in their flagship and allow a Chinese upstart to tout a more powerful phone. The S-600 Samsung used in the SGS4 was "AB" so let's hope the S-800 in the N3 is also. We'll find out when Anandtech does their testing. This is from their review of the SGS4...

That brings us to the Galaxy S 4. It's immediately apparent that something is different here because Samsung is shipping the Snapdragon 600 at a higher frequency than any other OEM. The Krait 300 cores in SGS4 can run at up to 1.9GHz vs. 1.7GHz for everyone else. Curiously enough, 1.9GHz is the max frequency that Qualcomm mentioned when it first announced Snapdragon 600.

Samsung is obviously a very large customer, so at first glance we assumed it could simply demand a better bin of Snapdragon 600 than its lower volume competitors. Looking a bit deeper however, we see that the Galaxy S 4 uses something different entirely.

Digging through the Galaxy S 4 kernel source we see references to an APQ8064AB part. As a recap, APQ8064 was the first quad-core Krait 200 SoC with no integrated modem, more commonly referred to as Snapdragon S4 Pro. APQ8064T was supposed to be its higher clocked/Krait 300 based successor that ended up with the marketing name Snapdragon 600. APQ8064AB however is, at this point, unique to the Galaxy S 4 but still carries the Snapdragon 600 marketing name.

If we had to guess, we might be looking at an actual respin of the APQ8064 silicon in APQ8064AB. Assuming Qualcomm isn't playing any funny games here, APQ8064AB may simply be a respin capable of hitting higher frequencies. We'll have to keep a close eye on this going forward, but it's clear to me that the Galaxy S 4 is shipping with something different than everyone else who has a Snapdragon 600 at this point.

NZtechfreak · Sep 16, 2013

The one I played with had the AB S800.

vladleo · Sep 23, 2013

Fingers crossed!

NZtechfreak said:
The one I played with had the AB S800.

The wiki snapdragon chipset shows the AB s800 only in xiaomi mi-3
The official note 3 global site only says 2.3 ghz quad-core processor....not mentioning what quad-core...
so it's 50-50......since they both have identical frequencies...here is for hoping for the best

) AB version!
Hopefuly you are right!
:fingers-crossed:

thekoRngear · Sep 23, 2013

vladleo said:
The wiki snapdragon chipset shows the AB s800 only in xiaomi mi-3
The official note 3 global site only says 2.3 ghz quad-core processor....not mentioning what quad-core...
so it's 50-50......since they both have identical frequencies...here is for hoping for the best) AB version!
Hopefuly you are right!
:fingers-crossed:

He later said this:

Actually I looked into this some more - the network guy I was in contact with said it was the AB binning as it was clocked at 2.3Ghz. I took that as read and hence posted that information here, however I see even at the 2.3Ghz clockspeed it looks like there are two binnings for the GPU speed. Bottom line I can't categorically state this is AB bin, my apologies for that - OP updated.

Here is what the Voodoo Report says, as you can see it depends on whether the 0007 revision corresponds to the AB bin:

Hardware : Qualcomm MSM 8974 (Flattened Device Tree)
Revision : 0007

agent4678 · Sep 23, 2013

The table in the referenced Anandtech article shows the CPU of the MSM8974AB as being 100MHz faster. It shows the MSM8974 at 2.2GHz, and the MSM8974AB at 2.3. Given this, I would assume that the note would have the MSM8974AB processor.

edit: Just checked the specs on the G2 and Z1. Those phones list their CPU speeds at 2260 MHz and 2200MHz respectively and both of them have the S800. Samsung lists the Note 3's CPU at 2.3GHz.

servantz · Sep 27, 2013

Can anyone who has received their s800 note3 please confirm whether or not the note 3 carries the 8974AB soc? I'm really interested to see if they added AB soc like they did with the S4...

SAVVAS. · Sep 27, 2013

servantz said:
Can anyone who has received their s800 note3 please confirm whether or not the note 3 carries the 8974AB soc? I'm really interested to see if they added AB soc like they did with the S4...

Are you sure that S4 has AB? Because if it did then it will be a paranoia not to do the same thing on Note 3 especially that Note 3 is more suited for this tweaked processor due to its thermal advantages over S4. Lets see....

servantz · Sep 27, 2013

SAVVAS. said:
Are you sure that S4 has AB? Because if it did then it will be a paranoia not to do the same thing on Note 3 especially that Note 3 is more suited for this tweaked processor due to its thermal advantages over S4. Lets see....

Yeah, I am sure that the S4 uses the 8064AB soc. It's well documented on Wikipedia, XDA, etc. Samsung has already set the precedent of using the AB soc in the S4 so I would be surprised if they did not utilize the 8974AB in the Note 3. I'm fairly certain they did use the AB soc in the Note but I still am waiting for someone with a N9005 to confirm. I'm surprised more people aren't clamoring to know this.

SAVVAS. · Sep 27, 2013

servantz said:
Yeah, I am sure that the S4 uses the 8064AB soc. It's well documented on Wikipedia, XDA, etc. Samsung has already set the precedent of using the AB soc in the S4 so I would be surprised if they did not utilize the 8974AB in the Note 3. I'm fairly certain they did use the AB soc in the Note but I still am waiting for someone with a N9005 to confirm. I'm surprised more people aren't clamoring to know this.

Then that's very good news.I was quite hesitated at first because as far as I am concerned Anandtech and many other tech sites and even Xiaomi in itself promoted/reported Xiaomi Mi3's S800 AB like it was the chosen one and the first on the market and none of them bother to report or had clue that S4 has already the AB variant!

Hmm...

servantz · Sep 27, 2013

SAVVAS. said:
Then that's very good news.I was quite hesitated at first because as far as I am concerned Anandtech and many other tech sites and even Xiaomi in itself promoted/reported Xiaomi Mi3's S800 AB like it was the chosen one and the first on the market and none of them bother to report or had clue that S4 has already the AB variant! Hmm...

The Xiaomi Mi3 was the first phone (maybe the only?) to announce the use of the s800AB (8974AB) variant. The S4 and HTC Butterfly S use the S600AB variant (8064AB). I really hope the Note 3 has the AB variant of the S800, although you would think Samsung might advertise the soc a little more as it does include an overclocked GPU and uses higher frequency ram. Anyways...someone please confirm!

Komodo Rogue · Sep 27, 2013

servantz said:
The Xiaomi Mi3 was the first phone (maybe the only?) to announce the use of the s800AB (8974AB) variant. The S4 and HTC Butterfly S use the S600AB variant (8064AB). I really hope the Note 3 has the AB variant of the S800, although you would think Samsung might advertise the soc a little more as it does include an overclocked GPU and uses higher frequency ram. Anyways...someone please confirm!

I agree, but Samsung may not want to advertise the S800 SoC too much, because if they say "the S800AB has incredible GPU!" then the Exynos markets would be

Plus, Exynos is samsung's SoC brand, and I'm sure they'd rather promote their product over qualcomm's.

eustilou · Sep 27, 2013

The unit in this review doesn't use AB.

See mark 9:30

servantz · Sep 27, 2013

eustilou said:
The unit in this review doesn't use AB.

See mark 9:30

:crying: Thanks for confirming. Shame they didn't use the AB soc. Why let Mi-3 have it but not Note 3??

eustilou · Sep 27, 2013

servantz said:
:crying: Thanks for confirming. Shame they didn't use the AB soc. Why let Mi-3 have it but not Note 3??

Maybe Qualcomm can't make that many?

Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app

eustilou · Sep 28, 2013

servantz said:
:crying: Thanks for confirming. Shame they didn't use the AB soc. Why let Mi-3 have it but not Note 3??

This is why.

http://gsminsider.com/2013/09/xiaomi-mi3-snapdragon-800-delays/

Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app

servantz · Sep 28, 2013

eustilou said:
This is why.

http://gsminsider.com/2013/09/xiaomi-mi3-snapdragon-800-delays/

Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app

Now it's starting to make sense. Thanks for posting this. i found an article somewhere on google that talked about how all Chinese Note 3's would come with the AB variant, but that clearly cannot be the case...still sucks. I am on tmobile so im stuck with the s800 variant. i kind of wish I could get the octo core variant, but i know i wont get LTE and i'm not sure if i would get HSPA+. I've got a preorder in for the note 3 but I'm considering waiting for the new nexus phone. Choices choices....

jjit · Sep 30, 2013

servantz said:
:crying: Thanks for confirming. Shame they didn't use the AB soc. Why let Mi-3 have it but not Note 3??

because Note 3 is much expensive in china, not many people will buy it
and xiaomi has much lower price point at 1999 RMB
also xiaomi has Tegra 4 version this year
so Qualcomm feels NVIDIA will take over the partnership with xiaomi
if they do not offer something real good soc
also Qualcomm is one of the investor of xiaomi

Pimpmark · Oct 2, 2013

techinsights.com/samsung-galaxy-note-3
I don't know if the site is reliable or not. But it seems that their tear down reveal that sm n9005 is using the AB chip.
Sorry that I can't post links as I am new.

but please do take a look!

[Q] Snapdragon 800: 8974 or 8974AB?

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