We finally know how powerful the Galaxy S26 will be, and it should get you excited

It seems like Samsung may be giving up on its plans for a Galaxy S26 lineup powered by its in-house Exynos 2600 chipset. The Galaxy S26 Edge has just been spotted on Geekbench, powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2, and putting out some pretty impressive numbers.

This listing shows the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 excelling at both singe-core performance as well as multi-core operation.

• Single-core performance score: 3,393
• Multi-core performance score: 11,515

For context, the previous Snapdragon 8 Elite chip used across the Galaxy S25 series scored as follows:

• Single-core performance score: 2,869
• Multi-core performance score: 9,495

These results were recorded on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, as its lower-end counterparts took a very marginal hit.

For further comparison, here’s how the iPhone 16 Pro and its A18 Pro chipset compared:

• Single-core performance score: 3,449
• Multi-core performance score: 8,573

Clearly, the multi-core performance on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 2 is leagues ahead of Apple’s last flagship phone. And, if Apple’s new release schedule is correct, then the base iPhone 18 may not even get a chance to use a better chip when facing off against the Galaxy S26 next year.

Now, if you’ve been keeping up with Samsung’s attempts at perfecting Exynos, you’re probably aware that the company was really hoping to get to use its own chip for the S26. The Exynos 2600 is supposed to be a 2 nm processor manufactured by Samsung Foundry, but ongoing yield issues are preventing the company’s vision from seeing the light of day.

These same problems prevented the 3 nm Exynos 2500 — now found in the Galaxy Z Flip 7 — from debuting alongside the Galaxy S25. Samsung, it seems clear, still has some ways to go before it can finally switch back to its Exynos chips.

However, there is also the possibility that the Galaxy S26 phones will go back to region-specific chipsets. As such, we may actually see an Exynos-powered Galaxy flagship next year anyway, and the S26 Edge found in the aforementioned listing might only make it to certain markets.

I wouldn’t hold my breath, however, as recent reports still maintain that Samsung is having problems with its 2 nm chip manufacturing process.