Now that Samsung's Galaxy S26 series has been unveiled, a lucky few tech enthusiasts have been able to get their hands on the new smartphones and the still mysterious Exynos 2600 chip that comes with the base S26 and S26+ in certain regions.
Just a few hours after the Exynos 2600 vs. the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 performance debate was settled for good, a tech-related YouTube channel has been able to definitively show the thermal prowess of Samsung's latest flagship-grade AP, and it is good news all-round!
Samsung has finally solved the 'heat island' issue with the Exynos 2600 chip
Vật Vờ Studio's Long Ngong recently put the Galaxy S26 and the Galaxy S26+ through their paces via tests such as Antutu, 3DMark, and CPU Throttling.
To test the Exynos 2600 chip's thermal performance, Ngong played three consecutive games - League of Legends: Wild Thrift, Genshin Impact, and Honkai - with the highest possible graphics settings. The ambient temperature during the test remained at around 26 degrees Celsius.
During League of Legends, the temperature of the base Galaxy S26 averaged around 32 degrees Celsius. For over 15 minutes of gameplay on the Galaxy S26+ involving Genshin Impact, the maximum surface temperature for the front of the device was around 38 degrees Celsius, while at the back, the temperature fluctuated between 37 and 37.5 degrees Celsius. Next, for Honkai on the Galaxy S26+, while the fps did drop materially on occasion, the front of the device reached a maximum of only 39 degrees Celsius, while the back recorded a maximum temperature of just over 38 degrees.
This is, of course, pretty good news for Samsung consumers who have lived through generations of successive Exynos chips showing quite egregious thermal performance.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, Samsung was able to revolutionize the Exynos 2600's thermal performance in three primary ways.
First, the Exynos 2600 is Samsung's first chip that leverages its 2nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process, which is a 3D transistor architecture where the Gate completely surrounds the channel - which consists of vertically stacked nanosheets - resulting in improved electrostatic control, a lower voltage threshold, and improved efficiency.
Second, the chip uses Samsung's new FOWLP (Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging) tech, which yields a smaller overall form factor by replacing the conventional substrate-based packaging with a wafer-level approach, allowing for direct connection to the silicon, resulting in thinner, more efficient chips. Basically, the approach allows for the placement of input/output terminals outside the semiconductor chip, integrating them on a silicon wafer instead of a conventional Printed Circuit Board (PCB).
Third, the Exynos 2600 uses an innovative Heat Path Block (HPB) technology, which is a copper-based heat sink that is in direct contact with the AP, while moving the DRAM to the side, enabling a thermal resistance improvement of up to 30 percent.
So, there you have it. By pairing its cutting-edge chip fabrication node with innovative packaging and a novel heat sink, Samsung has finally conquered the thermal throttling issue that had been the bane of each Exynos chip up until the Exynos 2600.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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