New technology will intelligently distribute tasks to the right cores for the job
Samsung announced today that in the coming months it will be releasing Exynos 5 Octa processors that will be able to simultaneously and intelligently use all eight cores at once. Samsung has been making use of eight-core Exynos processors in certain variants of its phones for some time now, but up until this point it hasn't been truly using all eight cores simultaneously. These first versions used either four high-power cores for intense tasks or four low-power cores for basic functions.
At some point Q4 2013, Samsung will start using its new "Heterogeneous Multi-Processing" (or HMP) technology to take advantage of all eight cores in the processor at once. With this technology, the system will be able to intelligently assign some processes on the "big" cores while others stay on the "little" cores to offer the best combination of performance and power savings for the task at hand.
To help represent what it is doing with HMP Samsung has made a funny little promotional video, which you can find after the break.
Source: Samsung