Leaked specifications for the chip that will power most Galaxy S26 handsets hint at a potential shortfall in processing power.
Frequent Samsung tipster Ice Universe has taken to social media to reveal detailed specifications for Samsung’s next flagship smartphone chip.
According to these claims, the Exynos 2600 will be built on an extremely efficient 2nm process. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, as found on the OnePlus 15, is a 3nm component.
However, looking at the 10-core CPU, we learn that he peak speed will be 3.9GHz. That’s some way short of Qualcomm’s go-to processor, which tops out at 4.6GHz. It also falls short of the 4.21GHz MediaTek Dimensity 9500, which powers the Oppo Find X9 Pro.
There’s good news in that this clock speed is faster than the Tensor G5 (3.78GHz) of the Google Pixel 10 Pro, but then performance has never been Google’s forte.
Exynos 2600 performance prospects
This isn’t to say that those Exynos 2600-powered Samsung Galaxy S26 models won’t be capable, of course. We’ve been hearing a number of reports over recent months claiming that Samsung’s new chip is a bit of a beast, especially in the NPU and GPU department.
If Samsung follows the same plan as previous models that utilised its home-brewed processors, we’ll be seeing the Exynos 2600 in global models of the Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26+.
In this scenario, US and China models of those phones would run on the aforementioned Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, as would all models of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra.
This approach has led to an irritating disparity in previous generations, with Exynos models coming off worse in terms of performance and efficiency. We’ll find out if Samsung has managed to even things out with the Galaxy S26 generation in January.
