Exynos 2600 May Lag Behind Rivals with Underwhelming Performance

Samsung’s Exynos 2600 chipset, expected to power next year’s Galaxy S26 in select markets, may not be a revolutionary upgrade. According to newly leaked benchmark figures, the upcoming 2nm will bring modest performance gains over the Exynos 2400. More importantly, it may fall well behind rivals from Qualcomm and MediaTek in raw power.

New leak paints a bleak picture for Samsung’s 2nm Exynos 2600

Built on Samsung Foundry’s 2nm process, the Exynos 2600 reportedly features two Cortex-X prime CPU cores and six Cortex-A performance cores. Early Geekbench 6 scores suggest it may achieve around 2,400 points in single-core and 9,400 in multi-core tests — about 20% and 15% higher than the Exynos 2400. While an improvement, the numbers pale in comparison to what competitors are preparing.

Qualcomm and MediaTek are targeting a single-core Geekbench 6 score of around 4,000 and a multi-core score of around 11,000 for their next-gen flagship offerings — Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 and Dimensity 9500, respectively, both of which are expected to be manufactured on TSMC’s 3nm process node. The Exynos 2600’s projected scores are far below these two.

Put simply, MediaTek and Qualcomm are poised to deliver next-gen chips that leapfrog their previous models in dramatic fashion. In contrast, the Exynos 2600 appears to be a relatively safe iteration, which could hurt Samsung’s competitiveness in the high-end Android space. More so, considering the backlash Exynos chips have received in the past for underwhelming performance and efficiency.

On the graphics front, the Xclipse 960 GPU, based on AMD’s RDNA architecture, is expected to score ~5,800 in 3DMark Wild Life Extreme and achieve ~85 FPS in GFXBench Aztec Ruins. That’s solid and a noticeable upgrade from the previous-gen Xclipse 940. However, it may still struggle to match the gaming performance of upcoming Adreno and Arm Immortalis GPUs in rival SoCs.

Can 2nm efficiency save the day?

The real wildcard for Samsung may be the efficiency gains from its second-generation GAA (Gate-All-Around) 2nm node. If power consumption and thermal performance show marked improvements, the Exynos 2600 could have a place in future Galaxy flagships. While raw performance remains a major selling point in the premium smartphone segment, thermal efficiency matters.

All this said, there is plenty of time before the Exynos 2600 enters production. Samsung must be continuously optimizing the chip for enhanced performance and efficiency. Depending on the outcome of thes optimizatins, the projected scores could go up in the comping months. Expect more details soon.