There have been numerous reports about Qualcomm partnering with Samsung for an exclusive Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for Galaxy chipset. Well, it appears that the partnership has finally come to fruition with the Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 for Galaxy finally appearing on Geekbench.
A mysterious Galaxy smartphone with a SKU number SM-S947U appeared on Geekbench, scoring 3,393 points in single-core and 11,515 points in multi-core. That's over a thousand points more in multi-core than the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Considering the Galaxy S25 Edge's SKU number was SM-S937U, this could very well be the upcoming Galaxy S26 Edge. We can also see that it's running Android 16 (One UI 8) with 12 GB RAM, which is possibly the base variant of the phone. The page shows a 2 + 6 core setup with maximum core clocks of 4.74 GHz and 3.63 GHz.
The SoC performs a tad bit better than the Exynos 2600 and outperforms even the Snapdragon 8 Elite from last year. Interestingly, it does so at 4.0 GHz, not fully reaching the speeds it's capable of. Therefore, it only performs 10% higher, when the 8 Elite 2 is rumoured to boast a 30% improvement in performance.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite 2's TSMC variant could be based on a 3nm process, whereas the Samsung-made "For Galaxy" variant could be based on Samsung's 2nm GAA process. More about the chipsets will be unveiled at the Snapdragon Summit, which is scheduled from September 23 to September 25, 2025.
Recent reports suggest Qualcomm could also be working on a budget flagship processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, whilst laying groundwork for next year's Snapdragon 8 Elite 3. MediaTek, too, is gearing up to launch its Dimensity 9500 series, which could be based on TSMC's 3nm process and is expected to get a major GPU upgrade.
The flagship smartphone chipset wars are heating up. It should be interesting to see how they compare with each other and which SoC takes the crown. Stay tuned as we will be testing and laying down our observations on the website soon.
