Samsung made a lot of fans happy by opting to use a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip in all Galaxy flagships launched last year. But that happiness is going to be short-lived, as Samsung is going back to its old ways this year and will sell the Exynos variant of the upcoming Galaxy S24 lineup in most countries around the world, at least for the base and Plus models.
Some recent rumors suggested that Samsung could launch the Snapdragon version of the S24+ in more countries than previously expected, but there's no evidence that will be the case. Except for the US, Canada, Japan, and China, all markets are likely to get a Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ powered by the Exynos 2400 chipset.
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the only model that will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 no matter where you purchase one. But according to a new rumor, the Galaxy S24 Ultra will have a slightly faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in some markets. Is that rumor accurate? Well, not really.
Galaxy S24 Ultra will have faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 everywhere
For those who don't remember, Samsung used a higher-clocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip in 2023 that was exclusive to Galaxy smartphones for the better part of the year. The Korean giant will have a similar advantage over other manufacturers with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the standard variant of which will have its fastest core clocked at 3.3GHz while the Galaxy-exclusive variant will go up to 3.4GHz.
However, Samsung seems to have tested both the standard and Galaxy-exclusive versions of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 during the development process, as revealed by benchmark entries for the device on Geekbench. Some of those entries show a 3.3GHz clock speed, which seems to be the source of the rumor suggesting that not all Galaxy S24 Ultras will be identical.
But all recent benchmarks indicate that every customer who picks up a Galaxy S24 Ultra will get the best version of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon chip. Samsung will use the standard Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 with a 3.3GHz clock on its fastest core, but only for the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+. As always, the base and Plus model will also have 8GB of RAM on the cheapest variant, though the latter will have a 12GB RAM variant this year.
The Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra will be officially unveiled on January 17 at Samsung's Unpacked event in San Jose, California and could go on sale by the end of the month.
