Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 too hot? Samsung considers Exynos for Galaxy S27 Ultra
According to Korean media, Samsung cannot keep the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy cool enough in the S27 Ultra and is considering switching to its own Exynos 2700. Qualcomm calls the reports inaccurate. Those considering an S27 Ultra would be wise to wait and see which chip it will contain.
While Intel adhered to a tick-tock model for years (a new architecture one year, smaller transistors the next), Qualcomm seems to have its own, unintended variation: every few years, a top-of-the-line Snapdragon chip fails to keep its cool. The 810 in 2015, the 888 in 2021, the 8 Gen 1 in 2022, and now, four years after the last misstep, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 may be facing the same scenario.
Deadline passed, Qualcomm denies
According to the Korean SEDaily, Samsung is currently having trouble adequately cooling the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chip in the Galaxy S27 Ultra. Tests conducted by Samsung’s smartphone division reportedly showed that the chip exceeds its temperature limit under prolonged heavy load, resulting in throttling. Samsung raised this issue with Qualcomm last month and gave it a deadline of mid-October to resolve the problem. That deadline has since passed; nothing is known yet about the outcome.
As a result, Samsung is reportedly even considering switching to the Exynos 2700, which Samsung develops and manufactures itself. According to SEDaily, that chip would be manufactured using Samsung’s second-generation 2 nm process (SF2P), feature a 10-core processor, and perform on par with or even slightly better than the Snapdragon in Samsung’s own tests. Furthermore, the fact that Samsung manufactures the chip itself saves on procurement costs and keeps its own factories busy. Whether the Exynos actually runs cooler in practise, however, remains to be seen: a high benchmark score says little about that. In any case, Qualcomm firmly denies the reports.
Recent reports about overheating issues with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 are incorrect.
Qualcomm’s marketing chief Don McGuire went a step further on X, calling the reports “100 percent incorrect.” Notably, in a follow-up post, he referred to the standard 8 Elite Gen 6 model—not the Extreme variant that Samsung is getting—and added that manufacturers tune their devices themselves. So both storeys could be true: a chip that’s fine on its own but runs too hot in Samsung’s current S27 Ultra configuration.
Why chips throttle
Smartphone manufacturers are constantly looking for ways to keep the processor cool during intensive use. Heat dissipation systems have become increasingly larger, materials such as graphite have been introduced, and systems like vapour chambers and water cooling are not uncommon. Still, things can sometimes go wrong, and when temperatures rise too high, chips start to throttle: they switch to lower clock speeds, resulting in reduced performance for you.
Samsung did this before with the Galaxy S6
As mentioned, Snapdragon chips are not immune to this, including the 810, 888, and 8 Gen 1. Phones that used them (such as the HTC One M9 and OnePlus 10 Pro) struggled with overheating and throttling. Due to overheating issues with the Snapdragon 810, Samsung skipped that chip and used its own Exynos 7420 in the Galaxy S6, which was a financial blow to Qualcomm.
Qualcomm won’t want to risk those problems again, so we’re inclined to believe it’s working closely with Samsung on a solution. In fact, it did the same thing last year: the Galaxy S25 Ultra ultimately received a 40 percent larger vapour chamber to dissipate all the heat from the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
What does this mean for you?
Nothing for now, except to wait and see. The Galaxy S27 Ultra will go into production later this year and launch in early 2027, so Samsung needs to finalise its chip selection in the coming weeks. For European buyers, the question is particularly pressing. Up thru the S22 Ultra, we got the Exynos version while the United States got Snapdragon, and it was precisely that S22 Ultra with the Exynos 2200 that was notorious here for overheating and throttling.
Since the S23, the Ultra has been the only S-model that has consistently featured a Snapdragon in Europe as well, while the standard S24 and S26 do, in fact, have Exynos on board here. If the Exynos returns to the Ultra, the most important question isn’t which logo is on the chip, but whether it stays cool under load. Anyone in need of a top-of-the-line model right now can opt for the Galaxy S26 Ultra, which runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 without any known overheating issues, and its price is dropping as the S27 launch approaches.
