⚡The S26 Ultra runs on Qualcomm's best chip - the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 - and Samsung had it customized just for Galaxy phones.
The Specs (If You Care)
- CPU: 8 cores - 2 big ones at 4.74 GHz, 6 efficient ones at 3.62 GHz
- GPU: Adreno 840
- Process: 3nm (smaller = more efficient)
- RAM: 12GB or 16GB depending on storage
How Much Faster Than Last Year?
- CPU: About 19% faster
- GPU: About 24% faster
- AI processing: About 39% faster
Those are Samsung's numbers. In real life, it means slightly snappier animations and faster AI stuff.
Do You Actually Notice It?
Here's the honest truth: For 90% of what people do on phones - scrolling Instagram, texting, YouTube, email - the S25 Ultra was already more than fast enough. The S26 Ultra is faster, but you're not going to open Twitter and think "wow, this is 19% faster."
Where you might notice:
- Heavy games: Better frame rates, max settings
- Video editing: Smoother 4K editing on the phone
- AI features: Photo editing, translations, etc. are faster
- Samsung DeX: Running a full desktop experience with lots of apps
The AI Thing
That 39% NPU improvement is actually meaningful. The NPU handles AI tasks, and more power means:
- AI editing features work faster
- More AI happens on your phone instead of the cloud
- Better privacy (your photos don't need to upload anywhere)
- Works offline
Why It Stays Cool
Samsung made the cooling system 21% bigger. The chip runs at peak speed longer before slowing down from heat. Good for gaming sessions or long video recordings.
Compared to iPhone
The iPhone 17 Pro Max has Apple's A19 Pro chip. They're roughly equivalent:
- Apple wins slightly in some tests
- Qualcomm wins slightly in others
- Neither is noticeably faster in normal use
Pick based on ecosystem and features, not chip benchmarks. Both are ridiculously fast.
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How we researched this
Where this comes from: this answer draws on the product's published specifications and the reviews ShopSavvy collected for it, alongside prices from ShopSavvy's price data.
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