The Exynos 2600 is the first chipset to use Samsung’s 2nm process, promising upgrades to both performance and efficiency, thanks to advanced lithography, increased nanosheet count, and improved gate control. However, things haven’t gone Samsung’s way, as the chip ended up drawing 30W at peak, making its rival, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (21W), significantly more power-efficient.

YouTube channel TechStation365 performed a series of tests on Galaxy S26 (powered by Exynos 2600), OnePlus 15 (powered by Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5), and Motorola Signature (powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 5). For the sake of this article, we’ll focus on Geekbench 6 and a Decompression Test (for a 20GB ZIP file), which reveal rather interesting results.

Both the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 have a peak power draw of around 21W, while the Exynos 2600 reaches 30W, which is a pretty significant gap, even though the power draw may have just been for a few seconds. This also means the Exynos 2600 will perform poorly under sustained workloads due to increased power draw.

Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5

• Single core: 3,641 points
• Multi core: 10,902 points
• Peak power draw: 21.48W

Exynos 2600

• Single core: 3,271 points
• Multi core: 10,745 points
• Peak power draw: 30.22W

Snapdragon 8 Gen 5

• Single core: 2,904 points
• Multi core: 9,443 points
• Peak power draw: 21.89W

Even in the Decompression Test, the Exynos 2600 didn’t see any efficiency improvements. It reached up to 7.8W in peak power consumption, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 and Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 are below 5W. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 also takes less time to decompress.

The results pretty much confirm that TSMC still has a solid upper hand in chip efficiency over Samsung. YouTube channel TechStation365 has concluded that the Exynos 2600 is a power-hungry chipset, as those 10-cores require a little more juice to perform optimally. Hopefully, we’ll see some real efficiency upgrades in Exynos 2700.

Check the complete video here.

Also read: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 vs Dimensity 9500 vs Exynos 2600: The flagship showdown

The post Samsung’s 2nm GAA efficiency disappoints as Exynos 2600 consumes 40% more power than Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 at its peak appeared first on Gizmochina.

Samsung’s Exynos 2600 is technologically more advanced than its Snapdragon counterpart, but an independent test reveals a significant efficiency gap.

The company had a point to prove with its first 2nm GAA chip, but the numbers raise more questions than confidence. Exynos 2600 should have been a turning point; a fresh node, a new transistor design, and a reset for the silicon division.

The headline problem is power.

The Exynos 2600 spikes to 30W under load. That is not just high for a smartphone chip, it is borderline laptop territory. In the same test, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 stays around 21W, as tested by TechStation365.

It is around 40 percent higher power draw for nearly identical multi-core output. Performance alone does not save this chip. In single-core, the Exynos 2600 trails by over 10 percent.

Multi-core is close, but that comes at a steep cost. The efficiency equation is broken; you are burning significantly more power just to keep pace.

The decompression test makes it worse.

The Exynos 2600 needs 63 percent more power to complete the same task, while also taking slightly longer. The Snapdragon chip, meanwhile, stays under 5W. This points to a deeper issue with Samsung’s 2nm GAA process.

GAA was supposed to fix leakage and improve efficiency at lower voltages. But first-generation nodes are rarely perfect, and this looks like a classic case of ambition outpacing execution.

This is not the first time Exynos has struggled, but it is more concerning this time. The company had a clean slate with 2nm GAA. If the first showing looks like this, it suggests the road to maturity will take longer than expected.

The post Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 crushes Galaxy S26’s Exynos 2600 in efficiency appeared first on Sammy Fans.