Samsung formally introduced its newest Galaxy S26 family of devices final week, powered by an unique model of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 cell platform. The lineup consists of the flagship Galaxy S26 Ultra ($1299), Galaxy S26+ ($1099), and base mannequin Galaxy S26 ($899)m all of which obtain some incremental updates.
In addition to leveraging Qualcomm’s newest mobile platform, the Galaxy S26 Ultra has a number of further methods up its sleeve, most notably is the brand new Privacy Screen characteristic. The design’s been up to date with an aluminum body and is thinner too at simply 7.9mm vs. the S25 Ultra’s 8.2mm. And the Galaxy S26 Ultra is a tiny bit lighter as nicely at 214g, in comparison with 218g for S25 Ultra.
Samsung additionally modified the digital camera bump for the complete S26 lineup to match the S25 Edge’s design, with metal-rimmed lenses protruding from a pill-shaped bump on the again. The optics are sooner / wider too, however we’ll save the entire deep-dive design specifics for our full critiques.
We recently got our hands on the top-end Galaxy S26 Ultra and figured we’d pull collectively a fast efficiency preview to indicate you all how the system stacks up. As talked about, the S26 Ultra boasts Qualcomm’s 3nm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy, paired with 16GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage. The S26 Ultra additionally features a redesigned vapor chamber for higher warmth dissipation.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra Benchmarks & Performance
All of our benchmarks had been carried out with the system in as near a default state as potential, that means we did not allow any particular efficiency modes or “gaming modes” or some other such options that may have an effect on the benchmarks. Of course, we will not account for all behind-the-scenes vendor optimizations, as cell system makers typically implement. Still, we predict these benchmarks ought to current a good image of what customers can count on when the Galaxy S26 Ultra goes up on the market.
Starting issues off with the ever-popular GeekBench 6 system benchmark we see a really robust displaying out of the gate. The S26 Ultra is available in with principally similar efficiency to the OnePlus 15 utilizing the identical SoC, and barely behind the liquid-cooled RedMagic 11 Pro. Notably Qualcomm’s latest SoC delivers a multi-core smack-down to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, though Apple’s single-core speeds stay dominant. Overall, a robust first impression.
In AnTuTu the S26 Ultra falls fairly a bit within the rankings, though it is nonetheless beating the iPhone 17 Pro Max. We’re not notably stunned by the RedMagic 11 Pro and the Snapdragon validation platforms beating the Galaxy S26, however the OnePlus 15’s dominant efficiency on this benchmark took us without warning. It’s potential OnePlus is utilizing a extra aggressive thermal or energy provide technique that’s permitting the Oryon cores to stretch their legs on this check; we all know the chip is able to much more by trying on the prototype outcomes. Still, high-end outliers apart, Samsung’s system is doing nicely.
The S26 Ultra is available in nicely forward of the S25 Edge in PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 check, overwhelmed solely by the gaming telephones which have high-end cooling and are designed for long-duration intense workloads. As the S26 Ultra is extra of a normal system that may additionally play video games, it is not actually designed for prolonged efficiency checks like this. Despite that, it nonetheless beats everybody apart from the check platforms and the gaming telephones.
In the Browserbench Speedometer 3 net app benchmark, the S26 Ultra is available in behind solely the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and it is nipping on the heels of Apple’s most interesting. This is a particularly spectacular outcome, as a result of Apple has largely dominated this area for greater than a decade; this rating is aggressive with desktop CPUs from Intel and AMD that draw ten instances as a lot energy. An wonderful outcome for Samsung.
Specifically testing on the neural processor of the telephone SoCs in Geekbench AI, we see Samsung delivering an impressive outcome within the benchmark’s “quantized” check that checks efficiency on fashions lowered to 8-bit precision, but the telephone’s 16-bit “half-precision” outcome continues to be fairly good. Apple owns the half-precision benchmark (a minimum of so far as telephones go), however Samsung is not far behind, whereas providing almost double the efficiency of the iPhone 17 within the quantized check. Great stuff right here for folk preferring on-device AI.
For gaming checks, we used the multiplatform 3DMark benchmarks. In the Solar Bay Vulkan ray-tracing benchmark, the S26 Ultra is available in proper together with the opposite gadgets primarily based on the most recent Snapdragon chipset, though curiously all of them lose to the Oppo Find X9 Pro sporting the Mediatek Dimensity 9500 SoC. While the Dimensity could not have the ability to compete with Qualcomm’s highly effective Oryon CPU cores, its massive GPU is sort of potent certainly. Of course, the outcomes from our high 4 gadgets are all principally inside margin-of-error.
We see related leads to the 3DMark Steel Nomad Light check, the place Samsung simply falls barely behind the Find X9 Pro and RedMagic’s 11 Pro gaming telephone. All of those are wonderful outcomes, although, and near the outcomes from highly effective laptop computer built-in graphics elements.
Last however not least, we’ve the 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited check, which is principally a reminiscence bandwidth benchmark because it checks in excessive 4K decision. Unsurprisingly, the RedMagic 11 Pro and S26 Ultra flip in almost similar outcomes, matching the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 check platform, with OnePlus’ 15 coming in simply behind and everybody else trailing.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra: Stay Tuned For More
Overall these numbers paint a reasonably rosy image of the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s efficiency. It almost retains up with devoted gaming telephones in prolonged benchmarks, and its browser efficiency is principally neck and neck with the most recent iPhone. Those are each spectacular feats for a general-purpose flagship system and our hats are off to Samsung’s Galaxy crew, as the corporate appears to have accomplished an awesome job optimizing this era at this early stage, a minimum of so far as efficiency goes.
Find The Galaxy S26 Ultra @ Amazon
The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra formally launches subsequent week, however pre-orders are open now. You can hit up our previous coverage to see the deals; apart from a $200 Amazon reward card low cost, Best Buy can also be providing a trade-in credit score of as much as $900 relying on what system you are buying and selling in. We have a full evaluate on the way in which, after all, so should you’re curious concerning the display, the digital camera, the battery life, and different options, keep tuned for extra quickly…
