A Galaxy S25 Plus Exynos phone has surfaced [UPDATED]

Update from December 5, 2024:

A spokesperson for Samsung Foundry has reached out and clarified a few points. Samsung Foundry's development division's disbanding is part of routine business operations and not indicative of the company abandoning progress altogether. Work on 2 nm and 1.4 nm production is still underway and the mentioned yield rates for 3 nm wafers are said to be baseless rumors.

The original story from December 5, 2024 follows below:

Samsung may have abandoned Exynos for the entire Galaxy S25 lineup but the company is still trying to make its in-house chips a viable alternative. A Galaxy S25 Plus prototype phone running on what is believed to be the Exynos 2500 chipset has shown up in a Geekbench listing.

Let’s address the elephant in the room first. Is it possible that Samsung may yet produce Exynos versions of its newest flagships for certain regions? No, I really don’t think so. Not only are the S25 phones just around the corner but there has also been zero indication from anyone within the industry that Exynos variants are in the works.

If that isn’t enough then just look at the scores of the S25 Plus Exynos variant. The Exynos 2500 performed a miserable 37 percent worse than the Snapdragon 8 Elite in single core testing (2358 vs 3230) and 29 percent worse in multi core operations (8211 vs 10617). Exynos Galaxy phones have struggled to match their Snapdragon counterparts in the past but this level of difference in performance means that the Exynos 2500 is not ready to be sold.