The Exynos 2600 chipset from Samsung is poised for an imminent launch as it succeeds the Exynos 2500. This new chipset is anticipated to be the flagship mobile chipset for the company, likely powering select editions of the Galaxy S26 series next year. In advance of its official unveiling, Samsung has shared key details regarding the manufacturing process of the chipset, which is expected to enhance performance and compete with Qualcomm’s forthcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2.
IDC Analyst Bryan Ma (@bryanbma) shed light on this development via a post on X, marking the first official confirmation from Samsung regarding the Exynos 2600. According to statements made during a recent Q&A session, the upcoming chip will be the company’s inaugural flagship chip crafted using the 2nm GAA (Gate-All-Around) process from Samsung Foundry. The Exynos 2600 is expected to exhibit a significant increase in NPU performance relative to its predecessor, particularly in terms of supporting on-device AI capabilities.
Samsung Q&A: “Exynos 2600 will be the first flagship chipset fabricated on the latest 2nm GAA process [via Samsung Foundry]…2600 offers a significant improvement in NPU performance versus the prior version with enhanced support for on-device AI functionality”
— Bryan Ma (@bryanbma) July 31, 2025
The insights likely emerged during Samsung’s Q2 2025 earnings call on July 31, during which the company announced that its Foundry Business is set to begin mass production of the new mobile SoC utilizing the 2nm GAA technology in the latter half of this year. The company also indicated plans to improve factory utilization and enhance profitability through increased sales to major clients.
Key Features of the Samsung Exynos 2600 SoC
Speculation regarding the Exynos 2600 has been ongoing, with expectations of improved thermal performance owing to a new Heat Pass Block (HPB) integrated into the semiconductor package alongside DRAM. Should these advancements be accurate, they may enable Samsung to achieve better power efficiency and battery performance in comparison to the latest Snapdragon chipsets.
The Exynos 2600 was recently detected on Geekbench with the model number S5E9965. It achieved a score of 2,155 in single-core tests and 7,788 in multi-core tests. The chipset operates with a 10-core CPU configuration, featuring a prime core clocked at 3.55GHz, three performance cores at 2.96GHz, and six cores running at 2.46GHz.
It is expected that some variants of the forthcoming Galaxy S26 series will be powered by the Exynos 2600 chipset, while the Galaxy S26 Ultra will likely continue to utilize Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chipset. For context, the Galaxy S25 series is fully powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC globally, marking a significant transition from the Galaxy S24 series, which was equipped with the Exynos 2400 SoC in select regions for the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ models.
