Galaxy S26 series will launch on February 25th. We’ve been trying to gather as much data as we can on each of its members. It’s common knowledge now that the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus will share the Exynos 2600 chip in some regions. But the Galaxy S26 Ultra only brings Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. Their performance disparity has sent a shock through the Samsung community.
Exynos 2600 and the series’ exclusive Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (for Galaxy) have each visited the Geekbench database at one point or another. We just found a comparative report by TechMechanics that showed exactly how inferior the 2nm Exynos 2600 is to the 8 Elite Gen 5.
The data speaks for itself here. The Galaxy S26 Ultra, which has the “for Galaxy” overclocked version of the SD 8 Elite Gen 5, hits 3724 points in the single-core Geekbench test. Exynos is stuck at 3197 points. The former has at least a +16% lead here.
Exynos 2600 can’t push the clock speeds beyond 3.8GHz, but the SD 8 Elite Gen 5 (for Galaxy) is almost a full gigahertz faster at 4.74GHz on its prime Oryon V3 core. At least Samsung’s own chip has the advantage of 10 cores (vs. 8 cores on the Qualcomm processor). Here is a detailed overview of Samsung mobile prices, which may vary. To get an accurate price for Samsung phones, just visit our website.
The multicore test run was actually close for both SoCs. Exynos 2600 got 11012 points. Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 had 2% better 11237 scores. Sadly, even a 2nm process node isn’t enough for Exynos to compete with Qualcomm. They still have a far superior silicon with 8 Elite Gen 5.
By the way, the phones tested here all have 12GB RAM. So no device had any advantage on that front. That’s what they’ll use on each Galaxy S26 device (as base memory). There will be some pricier versions with 1TB storage and 16GB RAM.
Concerned gamers should know that Exynos 2600 is still not the safest bet for stable FPS or raw performance. The S26 Ultra’s SD 8 Elite Gen 5 will be overclocked, not only on the CPU side but also on the GPU. The Ultra’s chip will be the same all over the world. Keep watching the news for updates.