Samsung Galaxy S26: Performance revolution on the horizon

Samsung Galaxy S25 will launch, but rumors of 2026 flagships are already surfacing. The latest rumor suggests that the Galaxy S26 will usher in a whole new era of performance and efficiency.

According to the rumor, the Galaxy S26 will use a Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 (8 Elite 2) chip. Qualcomm could source the production from TSMC and Samsung Foundry on their latest process nodes.

Next year’s Snapdragon chip could be manufactured using TSMC’s second-gen 3nm and Samsung Foundry’s 2nm process – returning to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-like dual-sourcing strategy.

Weibo leaker Undead claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 could feature two performance cores running at a clock speed as fast as 5GHz and six efficiency cores peaking at 4GHz.

These CPU speeds could only be available in the Snapdragon manufactured by TSMC. However, Samsung Foundry’s Snapdragon could have different clock speeds.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 features Qualcomm’s homegrown Oryon CPU cores. It has two main cores running at a clock speed of up to 4.37GHz along with six efficiency cores at up to 2.8GHz.

As Exynos isn’t doing well, Samsung could make some major changes in its Foundry business. The company could develop Snapdragon chips to be used in Galaxy phones at its own Foundry.

The generational difference in the process could give Samsung’s variant a marginal lead. Despite having an underclocked CPU, the “for Galaxy” variant could offer better performance and efficiency.