Samsung Exynos 2500: Benchmarks and Specs

Samsung's reliance on its Exynos silicon has always been a topic of debate, and when the brand launched the Z Flip 7 earlier this year, the spotlight was on the Exynos 2500. Due to the Qualcomm-centred market, there's naturally a lot of pressure on Exynos to finally break through the shackles of whatever's stopping it. Does the Exynos 2500 finally excel? We benchmarked it extensively, and here's what we found.

Exynos 2500 AnTuTu Score

The Exynos 2500 in the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 posted a score of 1,777,598 points on AnTuTu. The processor scored 569,671 points in the CPU department, 552,187 in the GPU, 295,399 in the Memory and 360,341 points in the UX department. While not the best processor in the segment, the Exynos 2500 is a capable processor, but where does it stand with its Qualcomm and MediaTek counterparts?

Sadly, it's nowhere near as close. The performance of Exynos 2500 is closer to Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and MediaTek's upper mid-range Dimensity 8400 processor. Ignoring the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5's ginormous 3.7 million score, the Exynos 2500 doesn't even come close to Snapdragon's less expensive counterpart, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 or even last year's Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

This is mostly because Exynos 2500 uses the ARMv9 cores, which are no match for Qualcomm's custom 3rd-gen Oryon cores. Although the processor uses a deca-core setup, which is two cores more than the Snapdragon and MediaTek, it struggles with thermal management due to the less efficient 3nm Samsung manufacturing process.

During the AnTuTu run, the Z Flip 7's temperature rose by a whopping 10.2°C, peaking at almost 42°C, and the battery dropped by almost 9%. The overheating resulted in thermal throttling, which in turn resulted in a massive power draw, affecting the performance and the battery.

The bottom line is that the Exynos 2500 would generally perform well in day-to-day use, but it's not meant to be pushed to its limits, or it will throttle and overheat.

Exynos 2500 Geekbench Score

Moving to Geekbench to evaluate raw CPU capabilities, the Exynos 2500 posted 1,751 points in single-core and 5,432 points in multi-core performance. These scores position the Exynos 2500 as a capable processor for daily usage and multitasking. However, it's again no match for the Snapdragon 8 Elite's 3,033 and 9,271 scores. It means the processor lags significantly behind in raw computational power and might not perform as smoothly as other flagship contenders.

Exynos 2500 CPU Throttling Score

We subjected the chip to a 15-minute CPU throttling test to check the sustained performance, and the results were quite concerning. The Exynos 2500 throttled to just 45% of its maximum performance. While the peak score of 399,204 GIPS is decent, the performance graph shows a rapid decline almost immediately.

The score stabilises at a much lower level with an average score of 213,973 GIPS, which is quite unacceptable for a flagship chipset. It indicates that under sustained loads like long gaming sessions or video rendering, the chip aggressively cuts back power to manage heat. Again, the Exynos 2500 is not the chipset for you if you like pushing things to their absolute limits.

Exynos 2500 3DMark Score

The 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Stress Test further confirms the throttling issues observed in the CPU test. While peak GPU performanc of the Xclipse 950 is high with a best loop score of 4,372, sustained power is lacking. The score dropped to 1,795 in later loops, resulting in a poor stability score of 41.1%.

To test the ray-tracing and lighter workloads, we ran Solar Bay and Steel Nomad Light. In Solar Bay, the chipset managed 6,383 points with an average score of 24.27 FPS, showing that it's capable of handling ray-tracing at modest frame rates. In Steel Nomad Light, though, it struggled significantly, managing only 1,956 points at 14.50 FPS, suggesting that the GPU struggles under heavy sustained loads.

Exynos 2500 Speedometer 3.0 Score

In our final benchmark, we ran Speedometer to test the responsiveness of the processor in web apps. The Exynos 2500 scored 21.0 points. This is respectable and comparable to other flagship processors. It indicates that despite its graphical struggles, the web browsing will remain fluid.

Benchmark Gallery

Exynos 2600 Specifications

Verdict

To conclude, the Exynos 2500 is quite complex to understand. On the other hand, its CPU performance is good, and web browsing is not an issue. The AnTuTu score of 1.77 million isn't bad in its own context, but it fades away when you start pitting it with the competition.

For power users and gamers, the chipset unfortunately doesn't have much to offer. The abysmal 41.1% stability in 3DMark, combined with severe 45% CPU throttling, points toward a significant thermal management problem. Unlike the Snapdragon 8 Elite, which maintains a higher performance under load, the Exynos 2500 sacrifices power to save itself.

Overall, while it's a good processor, it's hard to recommend for its price bracket, especially when chipsets like the Snapdragon 8 Elite and the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 exist. The Exynos 2600 paints a promising picture, but so have other Exynos chipsets in the past. It's a pattern that Samsung cannot seem to break out of, no matter what the brand tries.