Samsung introduced the original Exynos 5 Octa processor back at CES 2013, showing off an eight-core chip that would eventually find its way into one variant of the international Galaxy S 4. Now the company has taken the wraps off of an updated version of that chip, the Exynos 5420.

This latest Exynos 5 Octa processor is one of the first chips to feature a six-core ARM Mali-T628 GPU, which Samsung claims helps to give the Exynos 5420 twice the 3D graphics capabilities of the previous Exynos 5 Octa. Also included are four 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A15 cores and four 1.3GHz Cortex-A7 processors in a big.LITTLE setup. That configuration can produce processing power that's 20 percent improved over the 5420's predecessor.

Rounding out the new Exynos 5420's feature set is a memory bandwidth of 14.9GBps and dual-channel LPDDR3 at 933MHz. As a result, the 5420 has support for goodies like full HD Wi-Fi display, fast data processing, and several full HD 60 frames per second video hardware codecs for 1080p capture and playback.

Overall the new Exynos 5420 sounds like a pretty nice improvement over the OG Exynos 5 Octa, but and I'm sure that there are quite a few spec hounds that are already drooling at the thought of putting the chip through the benchmark wringer. Samsung hasn't revealed exactly which devices will be the first to be powered by the new system on a chip, but the South Korean firm does say that the 5420 is currently sampling to customers and should begin mass production in August. Here's to hoping that it's not long after that before Exynos 5420-powered hardware begins finding its way into our pockets.

Via Samsung