First quad-core, then octa-core? BlackBerry processor ambitions revealed

BlackBerry Ontario
Talk about oh, Canada

A rumored Blackberry phone codenamed Ontario has whipped by in a leaked benchmark, though a speedier device demon may be waiting in the wings.

According to a Geekbench Browser test, Ontario is set to run BlackBerry 10.3, sport a quad-core 2.15GHz Snapdragon 800 processor and 2GB of RAM. The last BlackBerry flagship, the Z10, only ran a dual-core chip.

As BlackBerry has previously announced, it doesn't have plans to leave the smartphone business, and it's inked a deal with Foxconn to produce cheaper handsets.

The manufacturing contract agreement would have the Chinese company create devices while BlackBerry supplied the software.

BlackBerry Ontario

Whiplash caused by BlackBerry 10.3? (credit: Geekbench Browser)

BlackBerry to go octa-core?

N4BB has it on the authority of sources that BlackBerry plans to use a 2.3GHz Snapdragon MSM8974 quad-core Krait processor in Ontario.

The phone is part of its O-series, and the site claimed the MSM8974 will also appear in its W-series (or QWERTY) phones and B-series (all touch).

It's a fine chip, but N4BB sources also say that BlackBerry plans to utilize the Snapdragon MSM8994 in a device due in 2015.

The MSM8994 is built on the 20nm HKMG process, and boasts an octa-core, 64-bit architecture.

The high-end chip also features an Adreno 430 GPU, 1600MHz 4GB RAM LPDDR3 PoP and cores that can hit frequencies of 2.5GHz with 4MB L2 cache.

It's no guarantee the 64-bit device or Ontario will ever come to market, especially if BlackBerry decides its resources may be better spent elsewhere. However, we'll keep an ear to the ground.

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.

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