GoKawiilAfter a year-long hiatus, Samsung’s custom chip series has returned to the Galaxy S26 series with the new Exynos 2600. While the powerhouse Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy is reserved for all Ultra models and select markets like the US, the Exynos 2600 boasts a number of improvements that it hopes will persuade global customers that Samsung is back at the top table of chip design.
We’ve already covered the latest Exynos vs Snapdragon race, but here are the key talking points. The Exynos 2600 steps up its performance with Arm’s latest C1-Ultra and C1-Pro cores, albeit at slower clock speeds than Qualcomm’s custom Oryon cores. Similarly, the GPU has been upgraded to an Xclipse 960, with up to 50% better ray tracing performance and Samsung’s Exynos Neural Super Sampling (ENSS) technology. The NPU has seen a significant 113% boost, too, ensuring the chip can run the latest on-device AI models.
In addition to the highly anticipated component upgrades, Samsung has debuted its new Heat Path Block (HPB) technology with the Exynos 2600. This is designed to improve heat transfer using High-k EMC materials, reducing thermal resistance by up to 16% and helping the chip sustain performance under heavy loads. Sounds promising, but what does it actually mean for head-to-head performance?
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Exynos 2600 CPU
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 2x Prime @ 4.6GHz
6x Performance @ 3.62GHz
Exynos 2600 1x C1-Ultra @ 3.8GHz
3x C1-Pro @ 3.25GHz
6x C1-Pro @ 2.75GHz
SME?
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