Tag: Samsung Exynos

In a first for Samsung’s foldables, the new Galaxy Z Flip 7 sports a Samsung Exynos processor instead of its usual Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. I’m reasonably convinced the Exynos 2500 looks more than good enough on paper, even if it won’t quite match the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside the Galaxy S25 series and Z Fold 7.

But the real proof is in the testing, so I’ve run the Galaxy Z Flip 7 through our usual suite of benchmarks to see just how far off the top spot it really is. For comparison, we’ve grabbed results from the latest flagships by Apple, Google, Samsung, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 found in vivo’s newest flagship. Let’s dive in.

The biggest divide in mobile chipsets these days is between those using “off-the-shelf” Arm Cortex CPU designs and those licensing Arm’s architecture to build custom CPUs. Apple and now Qualcomm fall into the latter camp, while Google, MediaTek, and Samsung stick with their configurations of Arm Cortex cores.

Historically, custom cores have outperformed the Cortex-X series in single-core tasks, which in turn often leads to strong multi-core scores — even when up against Cortex clusters packing more total cores. That’s still true today, and it matters because while most apps are multi-threaded, few come close to maxing out eight or ten cores. So single-core muscle still drives responsiveness and is a boon for gaming.

The Exynos 2500 uses the same Cortex-X925 core as the Dimensity 9400 (listed as Cortex-X5 on Samsung’s sheet). It’s not quite as quick as Qualcomm’s Phoenix CPU core, but the gap isn’t huge overall.

As you can see, the Exynos 2500 in the Z Flip 7 is about 18% slower than the 8 Elite in the S25, but it isn’t as far off the vivo X200 Pro’s MediaTek flagship. The lower single-core score likely comes down to clock speed (3.3GHz vs 3.6GHz) and some cache differences, but multi-core performance is surprisingly close.

Expectedly, the Exynos 2500’s Cortex-X trails the custom cores in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite and is even further behind Apple’s A18 Pro in single-core power. Despite having fewer cores, those chips’ sheer individual performances keeps them ahead in heavy multi-threaded loads too. This means the mainstream Galaxy S25 actually outpaces the pricier Flip 7 — at least in benchmarks. Still, the Exynos 2500 and Dimensity 9400 are only about 12% slower than Apple’s best, which is pretty nippy.

Another perspective? The Exynos 2500 easily clears Google’s Tensor G4 by a comfortable margin, with a huge 64% lead in multi-core performance. While beating Google’s Tenor is hardly worthy of an award, it highlights that the chip is plenty fast for day-to-day use.

Modern flagship chips have long passed the point of simply being “fast enough.” Even if the new Exynos doesn’t top the charts, it’ll easily handle multitasking and future apps over its projected seven-year software lifespan. For a style-first phone like the Z Flip 7, that’s arguably right where it needs to be.

One especially interesting part of recent Exynos chips is the use of AMD’s RDNA architecture for its Xclipse GPUs. It was among the first to bring ray-tracing to mobile, and Samsung claims the latest version is up to 28% faster than before. The Xclipse 950 GPU has grown this year — going from six Work Group Processors (WGP) and four Render Back-ends (RB) to 8WGP/8RB.

So what does that mean for actual performance, and can it keep up with Arm’s Immortalis and Qualcomm’s Adreno? The answer is… complicated.

Looking at the first test runs on their own, the Exynos 2500 does pretty well. It matches Apple’s A18 Pro in Wild Life Extreme and even outperforms it by 17% in ray-tracing. That lands it roughly between Apple’s chip and the even faster Snapdragon 8 Elite and Dimensity 9400. Not bad. However, the Snapdragon-powered Galaxy S25 is still 43% faster at standard rasterization, meaning way higher frame rates on Samsung’s mainstream flagship.

As before, the Exynos easily tops Google’s Tensor G4, scoring 76% higher in Wild Life Extreme. And we’ve rarely had complaints about real-world gaming on Pixels, aside from lowering settings in the most demanding titles. For typical gaming, the Exynos 2500 seems plenty solid, with AMD’s RDNA doing great work on ray-tracing that helps keep it competitive with the best.

Unfortunately, once the stress tests kick in, the Exynos 2500’s performance drops sharply — falling even below the G4. This is almost certainly due to the compact Galaxy Z Flip 7 throttling to avoid overheating. We saw the same thing last year with the Z Flip 6’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

Even the Galaxy S25 reins in its Snapdragon 8 Elite pretty quickly. Samsung is more conservative than most with regards to temperatures. As a result, we can’t draw too many conclusions about sustained GPU performance beyond noting the Flip clearly isn’t continually tapping into the Exynos 2500’s full graphics potential once things heat up.

There’s no doubt the Exynos 2500 is a capable chip, competing near the top for CPU tasks and even besting the iPhone in some GPU scores. It’s flagship-class silicon, even if it’s not the absolute fastest. Whether it’s the best choice for the Z Flip 7, though, is less clear.

Samsung has quite a chipset mix in its high-end products now: the Exynos 2400e in the Galaxy S FE, the Snapdragon 8 Elite in this year’s Galaxy S and Fold flagships, and the widespread use of last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — including in the Z Flip 6.

For everyday apps, the Z Flip 7 sits in the middle. It’s not as snappy as the 8 Elite but decidedly more powerful than the Exynos 2400e. Compared to last year’s Flip 6, however, there’s barely any uplift — just an 8% bump in multi-tasking performance. Hardly headline stuff.

Graphics arguably paint an even worse picture. The Exynos 2500 offers about an 11% ray-tracing improvement over the Flip 6, but it’s actually around 6% slower in standard rasterization. Thermal throttling hits hard, too — both Flip models end up worse off than even the budget Galaxy S24 FE under stress. That’s a testament to how tough the clamshell form factor is for heat. Equally, Samsung’s claim of a 28% uplift to ray-tracing over the 2400 is pretty optimistic; our result is closer to 22% coming from the FE, and even less from the flagship Exynos S24 model.

I can’t say for certain if the Exynos 2500 runs hotter than the 8 Gen 3, though its larger GPU core might not help. Either way, it’s clear the Exynos 2500 has much more potential than last year’s 2400, but it’s really just caught up to 2024’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. The $1,099 Z Flip 7 is effectively running last-gen performance — if that — especially considering its inability to sustain power under load.

That doesn’t mean the Exynos 2500 is a bad match for the Z Flip 7. It’s just that it hasn’t meaningfully pushed the phone forward, and powerful chips always face heat constraints in small clamshells. Still, last year we noted that 8 Gen 3 performance was bountiful for typical flip-phone use — and the Exynos 2500 will handle those same workloads just as well. It’s definitely “good enough,” even if that won’t satisfy everyone. Personally, I’d love to see what the Exynos 2500’s GPU could do in a phone with proper cooling.

Whether Samsung’s Exynos-foldable gamble pays off might come down to battery life. With a larger 4,300mAh cell and a new chip, maybe the Flip will finally comfortably last into a second day. That’s something we’ll have to test, as Exynos has historically outperformed rival chipsets in the energy efficiency department.