Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Pro Could Bring Back Exynos — and It Might Actually Beat Snapdragon
Story by Alexander Maxham • 23h
Next year, Samsung is shaking up the Galaxy S26 lineup. Giving us a Galaxy S26 Pro, Galaxy S26 Edge, and a Galaxy S26 Ultra, versus having a base, plus and ultra model like we had for the past five years. And now we’re starting to see more about the Galaxy S26 Pro, including the fact that it might have an Exynos 2600 processor inside.
There’s already been a number of leaks about the Galaxy S26 Pro sporting an Exynos processor in some regions, and using the latest Qualcomm chipset in others. However, there’s now even more evidence that Samsung will use the Exynos 2600.
What will likely happen is, Samsung will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the US and China, with the Exynos 2600 being used everywhere else. A big reason for Samsung using Qualcomm in these regions will be down to the 5G networks.
Samsung’s Exynos 2600 is rumored to use a 2nm process
According to leaks we’ve seen, the Exynos 2600 is supposedly going to be manufactured on Samsung Foundry’s 2nm process, with a 10-core CPU configuration. It will use an ARM C1-series for CPU cores, and the Xclipse 950 GPU.
That should allow it to run faster than the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple’s A19 Pro, but likely not the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which should be available in a number of devices very soon – including the Galaxy S26 series in the US.
Next year, Samsung is shaking up the Galaxy S26 lineup. Giving us a Galaxy S26 Pro, Galaxy S26 Edge, and a Galaxy S26 Ultra, versus having a base, plus and ultra model like we had for the past five years. And now we’re starting to see more about the Galaxy S26 Pro, including the fact that it might have an Exynos 2600 processor inside.
There’s already been a number of leaks about the Galaxy S26 Pro sporting an Exynos processor in some regions, and using the latest Qualcomm chipset in others. However, there’s now even more evidence that Samsung will use the Exynos 2600.
What will likely happen is, Samsung will use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the US and China, with the Exynos 2600 being used everywhere else. A big reason for Samsung using Qualcomm in these regions will be down to the 5G networks.
Samsung’s Exynos 2600 is rumored to use a 2nm process
According to leaks we’ve seen, the Exynos 2600 is supposedly going to be manufactured on Samsung Foundry’s 2nm process, with a 10-core CPU configuration. It will use an ARM C1-series for CPU cores, and the Xclipse 950 GPU.
That should allow it to run faster than the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple’s A19 Pro, but likely not the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which should be available in a number of devices very soon – including the Galaxy S26 series in the US.
 Related video: Is the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra worth it? (Jon Rettinger)
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It’s been a few years since Samsung has gone with the dual-processor approach for its flagship lineup. For the past few years, Samsung has used Qualcomm for its processor on the Galaxy S series worldwide. Which made many Europeans happy, as Exynos hasn’t been known for being all that great of a chip. Hopefully that changes with the Exynos 2600. As other recent chips we’ve seen from Samsung have been quite good – like the Exynos 2400 in the Galaxy S25 FE. |
