Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra To Feature A Breakthrough Exynos 2600 Chip Faster Than Apple's A19 Pro

As per reports, some versions of the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra may ship with an Exynos 2600 chipset that's supposedly faster than both the A19 Pro in the iPhone 17 Pro models and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 expected to power all Galaxy S26 Ultra versions. This is certainly an unexpected development for the Galaxy S Ultra model, since it hasn't used an Exynos chip in four years. What's interesting here is that not one, but two Korean publications offer the same claims regarding the Exynos 2600 benchmarks. It feels like a coordinated leak meant to hype the Exynos 2600 chip, and not necessarily the Galaxy S26 series.

A powerful Exynos 2600 chip would signal to potential clients a return to form. Samsung has already inked deals with Tesla and Apple for autonomous driving chips and iPhone image sensors, respectively. The Exynos 2600's prowess might help the brand secure similar deals in the future. Both Yonhap News and Hankyung relay similar information from Korea. As per reports, the Exynos 2600 chip has either entered mass production or will do so in November — right in time for the Galaxy S26 launch next year. The reports highlight both the performance of the new chip and Samsung Foundry's improved yield.

Samsung struck a deal with Qualcomm to manufacture custom flagship chips for the Galaxy S series following the Exynos 2200 fiasco in 2022. The Exynos versions of the Galaxy S22 phones tended to overheat, which made Samsung switch to Qualcomm's chips the next year. Samsung has used subsequent Exynos versions in some Galaxy S models, but only on the standard and Plus versions – like the Galaxy S24 and S24 Plus. The Exynos 2600 is set to deliver significant performance improvements compared to its main rivals, with both Yonhap and Hankyung offering similar estimates.

The Exynos 2600 NPU is supposedly six times faster than the Apple A19 Pro's Neural Engine. This is the component that powers AI features. The Exynos 2600's CPU is said to be 14-15% faster than the iPhone 17 Pro's chip in multi-core performance, and up to 75% faster in GPU performance. This suggests the A19 Pro will still outscore the Exynos 2600 in single-core benchmarks. While the A19 Pro outperformed the current-gen Galaxy S25 Ultra in benchmarks, the iPhone 17 Pro Max lost to Samsung's 2025 flagship in a real-life speed test.

The two reports also claim that the new 2nm Exynos chip would be 30% faster than Qualcomm's in terms of NPU performance, and up to 29% faster in GPU performance. The reports do not mention a CPU comparison between the two chips. Yonhap News also notes that the Exynos 2600 delivers performance improvements for video streaming/processing over both the A19 Pro and Qualcomm 8 Elite Gen 5 in tasks involving Netflix playback and playing video games.

The Exynos 2600 chip is expected to be the first Samsung chip with the modem separated from the chip — a design decision that may have helped with performance improvements. That said, the performance claims, while probably accurate, can't be verified until Samsung releases the Galaxy S26 series. A separate report earlier this week said that the Galaxy S26 series launch might be delayed till March. In light of the new reports, it's unclear whether Samsung's decision to use the Exynos 2600 in all three Galaxy S26 models has led to launch delays or if there are other reasons.