New Delhi: For years Samsung has been fighting Qualcomm’s Snapdragon in the in-house chip market. But, reports by Korean industry experts say that could be coming to an end. In Samsung’s tests, the Exynos 2700 outperformed Qualcomm’s top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6. For now, Samsung is reconsidering its choice of processor for the Galaxy S27 Ultra.
Faster in multi-core work
The first one is in terms of raw performance. In multi-core Geekbench tests, it was reported the Exynos 2700 scored about 10% lower than Qualcomm’s fastest chip. The multi-core scores represent its ability to run intensive parallel processing tasks like gaming, video editing, and AI applications on the device. That lead would be significant for a chip family that’s been a laggard when compared to its competitor.
The heat problem
The more interesting is thermal behaviour. According to the Korean outlet, SEDaily, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 overheated during the tests of Galaxy S27 Ultra. The X37 is reported to have exceeded its temperature limits and have reduced its own speed to cool down in prolonged and arduous flights. This has been compared to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which also had a bad rep to the point of overheating.
The Extreme chip is also the first cell phone processor to break the 5GHz barrier. That’s to put pressure on performance, but also to add a lot of heat. There are a number of Chinese phone manufacturers that already use the chip, but they are more common in larger cooling systems for vapor chambers rather than Samsung. Due to the slim design, more heat could be lost to the environment in Samsung.
A deadline that appears to have passed
Samsung and Qualcomm are said to be developing a solution. Qualcomm is reportedly given till mid-October by Samsung for their engineers, and, as reported here, no solution has been resolved so far. The Galaxy S27 series is expected to be mass-produced by the end of the year, ahead of a February or March launch, giving Samsung not so much time to decide.
But that alternatives will have to be explored if the Snapdragon can’t be fixed in time to satisfy the production timeline, according to one source, the premier has not been dropped for good at the Ultra.
What it would mean for Samsung
No, Samsung wouldn’t split the Ultra by region – either Snapdragon or Exynos would be in every region, so it remains to be seen whether that will be the case or Samsung will ditch Qualcomm (assuming they haven’t already done just that). It appears more likely to be a split, the Ultra being the top-selling S-series offering and requiring a huge number of chips.
Even if it’s just a partial comeback, Samsung LSI — the division behind Exynos — will be a big winner. The last Exynos Ultra in the world was released back in 2021 and the last Exynos Ultra-powered Ultra in South Korea was from 2022. A return should bring glory and profit to LSI, while it should reduce expenses for Samsung’s phone division, as premium Snapdragon processors cost a lot.
A caution
All this is based on unverifiable insider quotes and on internal benchmarking calls. There’s been no official comment from Samsung or Qualcomm, and the plans may change. Nevertheless, if these reports prove to be true, it will be a big switch around: A chip that had been considered a death knell for Samsung’s supplier could be Samsung’s solution to its cooling dilemma.
