Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- A long-time leaker has claimed that all Galaxy S25 series phones worldwide will use Snapdragon silicon.
- This comes after months of speculation and rumors about the choice of chipset for these phones.
Will the Samsung Galaxy S25 series exclusively use the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor or will some models have the Exynos 2500 chip? This has been the biggest unknown about Samsung’s upcoming flagships, with conflicting answers every week. Now, a long-time leaker has made a definitive statement about the chipset choice.
Ice Universe claimed on Twitter that all Samsung Galaxy S25 models worldwide will use Snapdragon silicon. This would be the first time since 2023’s Galaxy S23 series that all Galaxy S phones are exclusively powered by Snapdragon processors. To the best of our knowledge, this would also be only the third time that all mainline Galaxy S models in a series exclusively use Snapdragon chips (joining the aforementioned Galaxy S23 series and 2014’s Galaxy S5).
The Snapdragon 8 Elite is a major upgrade over the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in terms of performance and efficiency. Qualcomm claims a 45% boost to CPU performance over the previous chip and a 40% GPU boost, although we don’t see the same gains when going hands-on with a Snapdragon 8 Elite phone. Nevertheless, the Qualcomm chip is a big upgrade, so there’d likely be a huge performance disparity between the Snapdragon and Exynos S25 variants.
In saying so, we already know that the Snapdragon 8 Elite is more expensive than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor. In fact, previous reports point to a 20 to 30% price hike over the previous chip. This doesn’t bode well for Galaxy S25 series pricing if the devices are only using Snapdragon power.
A saga that’s close to reaching a conclusion
This leak also follows more recent claims about the Galaxy S25 series chipset. The Exynos 2500 is expected to be built by Samsung Foundry on a 3nm process, and a Korean outlet reported last week that Samsung’s 3nm manufacturing process still had an abysmally low yield rate. Another Korean publication reported last month that Samsung was ditching the Exynos 2500 in favor of Snapdragon power around the world.
Samsung Foundry’s troubles might not be over, either. Tipster Jukanlosreve recently reported that Samsung was thinking about tapping rival foundry TSMC to manufacture Exynos silicon. That would be a hugely unexpected move as Samsung Foundry has always manufactured Exynos chips. However, the chip producer has come under fire in recent months due to the aforementioned low yield rates and apparently disappointing financial performance.