There have been several rumors about Samsung going exclusively with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip for the entire Galaxy S25 series. However, it appears that the company hasn't left its hopes with the Exynos 2500 chip, as a variant of the Galaxy S25+ has appeared with the Exynos chip for the first time.
European Galaxy S25+ spotted with Exynos 2500 and Xclipse 950 GPU
The European variant of the Galaxy S25+ bearing model number SM-S936B has been spotted in Geekbench's database. It uses the S5E9955 chip, which is the model number for the unannounced Exynos 2500 processor. The phone also appears to be using 12GB RAM and running Android 15 (One UI 7.x).
As you can see in the image above, the Exynos 2500 has a 10-core CPU divided into four clusters. The prime CPU core is clocked at 3.3GHz. It has five high-performance cores, two of which run at 2.75GHz and the rest at 2.36GHz. It has just two power-efficient CPU cores, running at 1.8GHz. The chip scored 2,359 points and 8,141 points in Geekbench 6's single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
| Single-Core | Multi-Core | |
| Exynos 2500 | 2,359 | 8,141 |
| Dimensity 9400 | 2,711 | 8,632 |
| Snapdragon 8 Elite | 3,127 | 9,509 |
We found that the chip uses the Xclipse 950 GPU based on AMD's RDNA architecture. It appears to be supporting Vulkan 1.3, the most recent version of the Vulkan API for graphics. This version has new features, including additional dynamic state, device profiles, dynamic rendering, and improved synchronization API.
The Exynos 2500's CPU performance appears to be lower than that of the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite. However, you should remember that this is an internal test based on early software. Usually, the performance of a device improves when it becomes available for purchase.
Author's Note: Samsung has already confirmed that the Exynos 2500 is a 3nm chip fabricated using Samsung Foundry's second-generation 3nm process. Some reports claimed that the yield of those chips is so low that Samsung may have to cancel its plans to use the Exynos 2500, but it appears that things might not be so bad after all.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra might use the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip globally since that is the path Samsung chose for the Galaxy S24 Ultra earlier this year. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is based on TSMC's 3nm process node. The upcoming high-end phones might launch in January 2025.
