Samsung has officially revealed the Exynos 2500, its first 3nm GAA (Gate-All-Around) chipset, a major milestone for the Korean tech giant. Despite a bumpy track record with 3nm yields, Samsung seems to have finally cracked the formula – and the Exynos 2500 is their boldest bet yet, likely debuting in the upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 7.
The chip features a 10-core CPU cluster with a Cortex-X925 prime core clocked at 3.30GHz, two Cortex-A725 performance cores at 2.74GHz, five more A725s running at 2.36GHz, and two Cortex-A520 efficiency cores at 1.80GHz.
It may sound impressive, but early Geekbench leaks suggest it’s still trailing the likes of the Dimensity 9400, Snapdragon 8 Elite, and Apple’s A18 series in raw benchmark performance.
What’s new? The 2500 debuts Samsung’s advanced FOWLP (Fan-Out Wafer-Level Packaging), which allows for better heat dissipation and thinner chip designs. Combined with 3nm GAA process improvements, the chip is said to bring 15% better big-core performance and increased power efficiency – useful if the Flip 7 gets the rumored vapor chamber cooling.
On the graphics side, the Xclipse 950 GPU with AMD’s RDNA3 tech promises console-like ray tracing. Memory support includes LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage, paired with an upgraded NPU delivering 59 TOPS – 39% more than the Exynos 2400 – for improved on-device AI tasks.
Camera and connectivity also get a bump, with support for a 320MP sensor, 8K video at 30FPS, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, and a 5G modem offering blazing-fast speeds up to 12.1Gbps.
That said, the Exynos 2500 might be arriving late to the flagship race. With ARM and Qualcomm prepping next-gen SoCs, and MediaTek already ahead in benchmarks, Samsung’s chip could end up powering upper mid-range devices rather than front-line flagships. The real test begins when the Galaxy Z Flip 7 goes official at next month’s Unpacked event.