US Galaxy S26 & S26 Ultra Spotted with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

The global version of the Galaxy S26 recently surfaced on Geekbench with Samsung’s in-house Exynos 2600 processor. Now, the US version has appeared on the same benchmarking platform with an overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, confirming a dual-chip strategy. The US-bound Galaxy S25 Ultra also popped up on Geekbench, but with the regular Snapdragon chip.

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All Galaxy S26 models to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the US

Last year, Samsung launched the Galaxy S25 series with a Snapdragon processor globally. However, its in-house Exynos chips are making a return to the Galaxy S lineup this year. If leaks are accurate, the Exynos 2600 will power the Galaxy S26 and S26+ in some markets, including South Korea and Europe.

In the US, Canada, China, and select other regions, however, all three models look set to feature the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The Galaxy S26 Ultra is already expected to run on the Snapdragon chip globally. Now, a recent Geekbench listing confirms Snapdragon for the US-bound Galaxy S26 as well.

More importantly, Samsung is equipping the devices with an overclocked variant of Qualcomm’s latest flagship processor. This version allows its two prime CPU cores to boost up to 4.74GHz, compared to 4.61GHz on the regular Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The six high-performance cores remain clocked at 3.63GHz on both versions. The extra clock speed gives the chip better peak performance headroom.

Interestingly, the Galaxy S26 Ultra was recently spotted with a much slower Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, clocked at 4.19GHz. It appears to be a test run with an underclocked chip. The actual device should get the 4.74GHz version.

It’s unclear if the Adreno 840 GPU runs at similar clock speeds or if the Galaxy version has a higher-clocked GPU. Either way, the Snapdragon might pull slightly ahead of the Exynos 2600 in both CPU and graphics performance, but not much. Things should be more comparable than before. Samsung can’t really get away with another massively underperforming Exynos chip for sure.