The tradition of a custom “for Galaxy” Snapdragon chip appears to be alive and well. A new leak has confirmed what many have come to expect: the upcoming Galaxy S26 Ultra is set to receive a slightly more powerful version of Qualcomm’s next flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. While a faster chip for Samsung isn’t a surprise, the leak reveals the specific performance edge it will have over the competition right out of the box.
Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 “for Galaxy” to be slightly more powerful
The latest report comes from reliable tipster Digital Chat Station. Their post on Weibo mentions that Qualcomm’s new chip will be released in two versions. The standard model, which will likely power flagship phones from other major brands like Xiaomi and OnePlus in the coming months, will have its prime CPU cores clocked at a maximum frequency of 4.61GHz. This clock speed applies to the 2x Prime cores of the chip.
For the Galaxy S26 Ultra, however, Samsung could use a version with its prime CPU cores clocked higher at 4.74GHz. This difference, while small on paper, gives the Samsung device a boost in single-core performance. The 6x performance cores will maintain the standard version’s 3.63GHz speed. The Adreno 840 GPU clock speed is also said to remain unchanged.
Other brands will use the chip later
It’s noteworthy that other brands will eventually gain access to the faster version of the chip later on. However, Samsung could maintain the lead for at least half a year. Samsung uses this strategy as a differentiating element for its premium Galaxy devices. It also often includes a plethora of AI benefits with the purchase of new Galaxy S phones, just like Google. Will it be enough to make the Galaxy S26 Ultra a bestseller? Only time will tell.
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