Galaxy S25 Ultra chip focuses on GPU energy efficiency not CPU performance

Most likely we will see the yet-to-be-announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 application processor (AP) powering the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra early next year. The new Qualcomm AP, designed for flagship Android phones, will be unveiled during this October's Snapdragon Summit. It appears that Qualcomm is focusing more on energy efficiency with the new chipset as opposed to performance.

A tweet from a leaker says that internal testing data showed that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 SoC, produced by TSMC using its second-gen 3nm process node (N3E), is optimized resulting in an incredible performance by the Adreno 750 graphics processing unit (GPU). The peak performance of the GPU on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 was similar to the performance of the GPU on the powerful Dimensity 9300 AP made by MediaTek but at half the power consumption of the MediaTek chipset.

That sounds like good news for the Galaxy S25 Ultra but there is an issue. While Qualcomm is focusing on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4's energy-efficienct GPU, the performance figures delivered by the chip's custom Oryon CPU cores show only a single digit performance increase compared with current-generation chipsets such as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Interestingly, the tipster gives some advice at the end of his tweet: "If you care about CPU performance, please skip this generation and wait for 8G5 [Snapdragon 8 Gen 5]."

In other words, the leaker recommends skipping the Galaxy S25 Ultra and any other flagship that will be powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 and wait to see how the 2025 Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 SoC performs in tests. As for phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which should be carrying the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in all markets, Qualcomm's focus on the GPU's energy efficiency should allow the phone to run cool and deliver improved battery life.

Going from the 4nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC built by Samsung Foundry to a 3nm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 manufactured by TSMC should deliver energy consumption improvements on its own even without the optimizations that make the Adreno 750 GPU so efficient on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP.

Since we've already brought up the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 AP, we can point out that the chipset, which could be powering the Galaxy S26 in 2026, will use custom Pegasus CPU cores in the same 2 + 6 configuration as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 AP. That includes two performance CPU cores and six CPU efficiency cores.