Galaxy S26 Ultra Global Variant Spotted with Snapdragon Processor

Over the past few days, the Galaxy S26 and S26+ have made multiple visits to Geekbench with Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2600 processor. Now, the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s global variant has also appeared on the benchmarking platform, but running a Qualcomm chipset, specifically the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. This effectively confirms that Samsung is exclusively using Snapdragon silicon on the Ultra model.

Galaxy S26 Ultra appears with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor

After a Snapdragon-exclusive Galaxy S25 lineup, Samsung is bringing its Exynos chips back in the mix for its 2026 flagships. The 2nm Exynos 2600 is all set to power the Galaxy S26 and S26+ in most global markets. However, the Ultra has always been rumored to run on the latest Snapdragon worldwide. This new Geekbench entry confirms the same.

The global variant of the Galaxy S26 Ultra (SM-S948B) appeared on the benchmarking platform with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, a 3nm chip. Samsung uses a customized version with a faster CPU, featuring two prime cores clocked at 4.74GHz and six mid-cores clocked at 3.63GHz. The device scored 3,601 points in single-core CPU tests and 10,686 points in multi-core CPU tests on Geekbench v6.5.

The single-core score is a little higher than what the Exynos 2600-powered Galaxy S26 and S26+ have achieved in recent Geekbench runs. On the other hand, the multi-core score is slightly on the lower side. Nothing serious, though. These two chips look set to deliver comparable everyday performance. One or the other could still take a lead in thermal management and efficiency.

This listing also shows the Galaxy S26 Ultra with 12GB of RAM. There are rumors that Samsung will launch the 16GB model more widely this year. However, we have yet to see the global variant with more RAM. The official launch is expected on February 25, so leaks should keep mounting in the coming days.