Exynos 2600 Beats a Liquid Nitrogen Snapdragon, Not in the US

Samsung’s Exynos 2600 inside the Galaxy S26 has done something benchmark charts rarely show: it beat a rival chip that engineers had chilled with liquid nitrogen. In Geekbench 6, the passively cooled Exynos part posted a multi-core score of 10,444 to 10,207 against the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, and held its lead in sustained workloads where the cryogenically cooled Qualcomm phone could not. The trick is a copper thermal layer Samsung built into the chip stack itself.

The catch lands fast. Samsung is only fitting the Exynos 2600 to the base Galaxy S26 and S26+ in Europe, South Korea, India and a band of developing markets. Buyers in the US, China and Japan get Snapdragon, and every Galaxy S26 Ultra ships with Snapdragon worldwide. So the most interesting silicon Samsung has shipped in years is also the one millions of its customers cannot buy.

The Benchmark That Beat Cryogenics

The headline result came out of a Samsung thermal showcase first reported by South Korean outlet ET News, then picked up across the chip press: an Exynos 2600 cooled only by its own internal heatsink kept pace with, and pulled ahead of, a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 sitting under liquid nitrogen. Liquid nitrogen sits near minus 196 degrees Celsius. A copper block inside a phone does not get within a few hundred degrees of that, and it still won the sustained test.

That gap matters because peak and sustained are different sports. Liquid nitrogen is an overclocker’s stunt; it buys a record-breaking number for a few seconds in a lab and means nothing for a phone you keep in your pocket. The number that decides whether a long gaming session or an 8K video export throttles is the one the chip can hold after ten minutes of heat, and that is the test Samsung’s part won.

On raw Geekbench 6 figures the picture is split. Qualcomm’s chip still takes single-core at 3,588 to the Exynos 2600’s 3,105, so the Snapdragon core is faster per thread. Samsung claws it back in multi-core thanks to a 10-core layout, and early testing also gives the Exynos graphics processor the edge in GPU runs.

• 10,444 multi-core Geekbench 6 score for the Exynos 2600, versus 10,207 for the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy.
• 3,588 vs 3,105 single-core, the one headline metric where Qualcomm’s chip stays ahead.
• Sustained-load lead for the Exynos part even against a nitrogen-cooled rival, the result Samsung built its whole pitch around.

How the Heat Pass Block Works

The component doing the work is what Samsung calls its Heat Pass Block (HPB, a copper heatsink bonded directly onto the chip die). Most flagship phones fight heat from the outside in, with a vapor chamber and thermal paste spreading warmth across the chassis. Samsung went the other way and put a dedicated metal layer inside the silicon package, a trick borrowed from PCs and servers and, by its own account, a first for a mobile system on chip (SoC, the single die that holds the processor, graphics and modem).

To make room for it, Samsung rearranged the package. On older Exynos parts the DRAM (dynamic random-access memory, the phone’s short-term working memory) sat stacked on top of the processor, trapping heat. For this generation the memory moved to the side so the processor and the copper block touch directly, letting heat conduct straight out of the hot die into the metal.

The payoff is real in two numbers that come from different places. Samsung’s own marketing for the official Exynos 2600 specifications claims the design lowers thermal resistance by up to 16 percent. Reporting from the Korean showcase put the practical gain higher, at up to 30 percent cooler running than the previous Exynos generation under load.

That is the engineering story behind the nitrogen headline, and it is also why the chip matters beyond one phone. A passive heatsink that holds clocks steady is the kind of thing that shows up again, which is what Samsung’s earlier 2nm Exynos 2600 chip reveal hinted at when the thermal design first surfaced.

Exynos 2600 vs Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 on the Numbers

Strip away the showmanship and the two chips trade blows rather than one running away with it. Samsung leads on process node and multi-threaded work; Qualcomm leads on single-core and, as the next section covers, on power. The graphics edge goes to Samsung’s Xclipse 960, the part that anchors the gaming pitch in its 2nm mobile gaming GPU breakdown.

You can read the Geekbench 6 benchmark methodology for how those single- and multi-core figures are weighted, which matters here because Samsung’s win is built almost entirely on the multi-threaded side of the test.

Europe, Korea and India Get the Chip the US Cannot Buy

The split is the whole story for shoppers, and it is unusually clean this year. Samsung’s chip team built a genuine thermal advantage, then handed it to some regions and not others.

Who Wins

The base Galaxy S26 and the S26+ ship with the Exynos 2600 across Europe, South Korea, India and several developing markets. Those buyers get the Heat Pass Block, the 2nm node, the stronger GPU and the sustained-load behavior that beat the nitrogen rig. For once, the Exynos label is the one to want rather than the consolation prize, and European customers sit on the right side of that line.

Who Loses

Buyers in the US, China and Japan get the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in the same base and Plus phones. They keep the single-core lead and better power efficiency, but they miss the copper heatsink entirely. Anyone who specifically wanted to see what Samsung’s silicon division can do is locked out by geography.

Why the Ultra Sits It Out

The Galaxy S26 Ultra runs Snapdragon in every market, with no Exynos option anywhere. So the flagship that costs the most, and that the heaviest users gravitate toward, never gets the thermal design Samsung is busy showing off. The chip that beats cryogenics is reserved for the cheaper phones, in a shortlist of countries.

The Power-Draw Bill Behind the Scores

The win comes with a meter running. Early benchmark testing flagged by the chip press measured the Exynos 2600 pulling around 30 watts at peak in Geekbench 6, roughly 40 percent more than the Snapdragon part doing the same run. That math puts Qualcomm’s chip near 21 watts for comparable work.

That is the awkward footnote under the 2nm headline. A smaller, newer process node is supposed to deliver more performance per watt, yet here the brute-force multi-core score is partly bought with extra power. The Heat Pass Block is arguably so important precisely because the chip runs hot; a cooler-running design would not need to lean on an internal heatsink as hard.

For a buyer, the practical read is mixed rather than damning. The HPB keeps clocks stable, so you feel the speed during long sessions, but a higher draw can show up as warmth and shorter screen time under heavy load. The Snapdragon phones trade a little sustained ceiling for steadier battery behavior, which is its own kind of win.

What Samsung’s Thermal Win Signals Next

Samsung is not keeping the cooling trick to itself. Reporting from the Korean showcase says the company is opening the technology, and its foundry, to outside chip vendors, with Qualcomm, Apple and MediaTek named as potential takers. If that happens, the same heatsink-on-die approach could end up cooling the very Snapdragon and Apple chips that compete with Exynos.

The thermal headroom also points at what Samsung wants to stack on the die later. Its roadmap already teases an Exynos chip with on-device HBM memory, the kind of dense, power-hungry component that only becomes practical if you can move the heat out fast enough. The Heat Pass Block reads less like a one-off and more like the foundation for that.

For now, the story sits where the launch left it. The Galaxy S26 trio arrived at Samsung’s February 25 Unpacked event and went on sale March 11, with the base model starting at $899.99. You can confirm the lineup on the official Galaxy S26 product page.

If Samsung licenses the Heat Pass Block to its rivals and threads it through the next Exynos, the nitrogen stunt becomes the opening note of a real platform. If it stays bottled inside a handful of regional S26 models, it ends up the best chip most Samsung buyers never got to use.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the Galaxy S26 use the Exynos 2600 or Snapdragon in Europe?

Europe gets the Exynos 2600 in the base Galaxy S26 and the S26+. Samsung also ships the Exynos version in South Korea, India and several developing markets, so European buyers receive the chip with the Heat Pass Block thermal design rather than the Snapdragon variant.

Can US buyers get the Exynos 2600 Galaxy S26?

No. The US, along with China and Japan, gets the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in the base and Plus models. The Exynos 2600 and its copper heatsink are not offered to US shoppers at all.

What is Samsung’s Heat Pass Block?

It is a copper heatsink bonded directly onto the chip die inside the Exynos 2600. Samsung moved the memory to the side of the package so the processor touches the metal directly, conducting heat out faster and, by its account, running up to 30 percent cooler than the previous Exynos generation under load.

Is the Exynos 2600 faster than the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5?

It depends on the test. The Exynos 2600 leads in Geekbench 6 multi-core (10,444 to 10,207) and in GPU runs, and it holds performance better under sustained load. The Snapdragon chip wins single-core at 3,588 to 3,105 and draws less power.

Does the Galaxy S26 Ultra have the Exynos 2600?

No. The Galaxy S26 Ultra ships with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in every region. There is no Exynos 2600 option for the Ultra anywhere in the world.

When did the Galaxy S26 launch and how much does it cost?

Samsung announced the Galaxy S26 series at its February 25 Unpacked event and released it on March 11. The base Galaxy S26 starts at $899.99 for the 12GB and 256GB configuration, with the S26+ starting at $1,099.99.