Samsung launched the Galaxy S26 series with a dual chipset strategy, equipping the Galaxy S26 Ultra exclusively with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy while offering both the Snapdragon and Samsung's in-house Exynos 2600 on the Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus depending on region. Early benchmark results suggest Samsung's latest silicon finally closes the performance gap that plagued previous Exynos chips.

Geekbench 6 results show the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy scoring 3,670 in single-core and 10,981 in multi-core tests on the Galaxy S26 Ultra, while the Exynos 2600 powered Galaxy S26 Plus achieved 3,105 and 10,444 respectively. That translates to roughly a 10% CPU advantage for Qualcomm's chip. A second Geekbench comparison shows similar margins with the Snapdragon at 3,724 single-core and 11,237 multi-core against the Exynos 2600's 3,197 and 11,012.

The GPU performance tells a different story. The Exynos 2600's Xclipse 960 graphics chip scored 24,240 on OpenCL tests, effectively matching the Snapdragon's Adreno GPU at 24,152. The Exynos 2600 uses Samsung's 2nm manufacturing process with a 1+3+6 core architecture featuring one big C1-Ultra core at 3.8 GHz, three C1-Pro cores at 3.25 GHz, and six efficiency cores at 2.75 GHz. Meanwhile, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy runs on TSMC's 3nm process with two Oryon Gen 3 Prime cores at 4.61 GHz and six performance cores at 3.63 GHz.

The Galaxy S26 Ultra marks a significant shift for Samsung's flagship lineup beyond raw performance metrics. Pre-release system logs indicate the S26 Ultra will support full Linux Terminal functionality through Android Virtualization Framework (AVF) in One UI 8.5, a feature that eluded the Galaxy S25 despite having compatible hardware. This brings Samsung's Ultra model in line with Google Pixel devices for developers who want native terminal access without third-party workarounds.

While these early synthetic benchmarks paint a promising picture for Samsung's Exynos comeback, real-world performance under sustained workloads and thermal testing will provide a clearer comparison between the two chipsets. The Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus ship with Exynos 2600 in most global markets, while customers in the United States, China, and Japan receive the Snapdragon variant.