A new report says Samsung will use the Exynos 2600 on the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Edge globally, except in the US and China. The Galaxy S26 Ultra, on the other hand, will be Snapdragon-only regardless of market.
A recent Exynos 2600 Geekbench listing showed the chip competing with Qualcomm’s next-gen Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 (also known as Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5). While the Qualcomm flagship wasn’t running at its full potential, the Exynos 2600 still posted some respectable performance gains over its last-gen counterpart. Those wanting to see its full potential will be pleased to know it will power the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Edge next year.
As always, the Exynos 2600 will only power units sold in select markets, including Korea, Europe, and others. The US and China will get the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for all three devices, as evidenced by a recent Geekbench listing of the Galaxy S26 Edge with a Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for Galaxy. Lastly, the Galaxy S26 Ultra will continue to use the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 globally -a strategy that began with the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
The above-mentioned Geekbench listing confirmed that the Exynos 2600 would feature a deca-core CPU with a 1+7+2 layout. Like MediaTek, Samsung has ditched E-cores altogether, with the Exynos 2600 rumoured to come with one Cortex-X9930 and nine Cortex-A730 cores. Additionally, another rumour states Samsung has ditched AMD’s RDNA IP altogether for its Xclipse 960 and tasked an ex-Huawei engineer to design a GPU from the ground up.
On paper, the SF2 Exynos 2600 has a node advantage over the TSMC N3P Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy 2. Historically, that has never translated to a real-world performance superiority, and it seems unlikely this time as well. Nevertheless, even on-par performance with the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 should be sufficient to reignite confidence in Samsung’s struggling foundry business.
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Anil Ganti – Senior Tech Writer – 2688 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2019
I’ve been an avid PC gamer since the age of 8. My passion for gaming eventually pushed me towards general tech, and I got my first writing gig at the age of 19. I have a degree in mechanical engineering and have worked in the manufacturing industry and a few other publications like Wccftech before joining Notebookcheck in November 2019. I cover a variety of topics including smartphones, gaming, and computer hardware.
Anil Ganti, 2025-09- 3 (Update: 2025-09- 3)
