Samsung’s Galaxy S25 development is in full swing. A few days ago, the Ultra model appeared in benchmark listings, revealing interesting pieces of information. The US and global versions of the device ran different Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 variants (the chip may be renamed to Snapdragon 8 Elite). The Galaxy S25+ has now surfaced on the same benchmarking platform to add to the confusion.
Benchmark shows a slower Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 for the US Galaxy S25+
The Galaxy S25 Ultra’s US version (SM-S938U) recently surfaced on Geekbench running the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 clocked at 4.19GHz. It has two CPU cores running at the maximum speed, with the six mid-cores operating at 2.90GHz. The Plus model (SM-S936U) has now appeared with the same chipset. The Galaxy S24’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (For Galaxy) chipset has a peak speed of 3.39GHz, so it’s a massive CPU boost.
However, Samsung is testing one more Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 variant with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Its global version (SM-S938B) visited Geekbench with CPU speeds of 4.47GHz and 3.53GHz. This suggests the former is the standard version and this is the “For Galaxy” version exclusively available to Samsung. But then, Geekbench also previously showed a variant with SPU speeds of 4.09GHz and 2.78GHz.
Of the three Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 variants spotted so far, Samsung is testing the two fastest ones with its Galaxy S25 phones. However, the US versions of the devices feature the slower variant of the two. This makes us wonder if the company plans to ship the new flagships with different chipsets in the US and the rest of the world. It may not be the brightest idea though, as the speed gap between the two is huge.
On the flip side, both variants appear to outperform the iPhone 16 Pro Max’s A18 Pro. Even the Galaxy S25+ achieved stellar scores of 3,054 (single-core) and 9,224 (multi-core) on Geekbench v6.3. Since these are pre-production test units, the commercial units could deliver better results. But we’d still like to see Samsung use the same chip everywhere. Perhaps not even include Exynos into the mix. Time will tell what the company has in mind.
