Samsung has reportedly ordered motherboards for a Galaxy S27 Ultra built around its own Exynos 2700 chip. If the plan survives to launch, it would be the first Exynos-powered Ultra since the Galaxy S22 Ultra in 2022, ending four straight years of Snapdragon-only models, SamMobile noted. Samsung has said nothing about it, and the phone is months from release.
The story starts with the Korean outlet MoneyToday. GSMArena, SamMobile and Digital Trends all picked it up this week, but all three trace back to that one account, so treat it as a single-source report.
A late change of plan
The timing is odd. Insiders cited by GSMArena say the Snapdragon version was nearly finished when the Exynos order went in, and the original plan was Qualcomm silicon in every market. MoneyToday says Samsung’s MX mobile division and its System LSI chip-design unit worked together on the Exynos board and on securing enough chips. An insider told the paper that adding an Exynos model so late is unusual and shows “high expectations for the proprietary AP.”
Qualcomm is not being dropped. MoneyToday describes a “two-track” approach, with Snapdragon Ultra development continuing alongside the Exynos variant. U.S. units should keep the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6, while Korea is consistently named as an Exynos market. GSMArena adds that Europe may get Exynos Ultras too, a detail nobody else has reported.
The numbers behind it
Internal testing, according to MoneyToday, put the Exynos 2700’s multi-core CPU performance 19 percent ahead of the standard Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6 and 9.5 percent ahead of a “Pro” version that is itself only a rumor. GPU performance was said to be 22 percent ahead of that rumored chip while drawing 2.5 watts. These are Samsung’s own figures, not independent tests, and Digital Trends calls them early claims.
The chip is reportedly built on Samsung Foundry’s second-generation 2nm-class process, SF2P, which GSMArena says targets a 26 percent cut in power use and a 15 percent gain in clock speed. SamMobile points to a 10-core CPU, an Xclipse 970 GPU and possible LPDDR6 memory and UFS 5.0 storage. None of that is confirmed. The Exynos 2200 in the S22 Ultra delivered mixed results, which is partly why Samsung dropped Exynos from the Ultra in the first place.
Money pressure
The finances may matter more. MoneyToday says Samsung spent about 743.8 billion won in the first half of 2026 on mobile processors from outside suppliers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek, 17.9 percent of its device division’s material costs. Samsung’s MX and Network business, which covers smartphones, lost roughly 700 billion won in the second quarter, its first quarterly loss since the third quarter of 2009. System LSI posted record first-half sales but is still expected to lose money for the year.
An industry source told MoneyToday that large-scale Exynos 2700 production is targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026, which could help fill Samsung Foundry’s 2nm lines. Independent benchmarks and foundry yields will show whether the claims hold.
