Snapdragon overheating rumor might force Samsung to make Galaxy S27 Ultra chip decision

Heat is the enemy of your phone's processor. Let me repeat that. Heat is the enemy of your phone's processor. That is why Samsung's Exynos chips had a poor reputation until recently. Last year, Samsung added the Heat Path Block (HPB) to keep the Exynos 2600 chipset cooler and the Exynos 2700 has an even better version of the HPB.

You might recall that back in 2015, when the Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 was overheating during production testing, Samsung was forced to use the homegrown Exynos 7420 SoC for the Galaxy S6 in all markets.

Back in 2015, the flagship Snapdragon chipset was built using the 20nm process node

This year was unusual because the Exynos 7420 was built on the 14nm process node making it a more efficient chip than the Snapdragon 810, which was manufactured using a 20nm process node. To show you how far we've come, the Exynos 2600 used with the Galaxy S 26 series this year and was produced using Samsung Foundry's 2nm process.

Samsung used its dual-chip strategy with the Galaxy S26 series

This year, the Galaxy S26 line used Samsung's traditional dual-chip strategy with the Galaxy S26 and S26+ powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in North America (US and Canada) and China. In other markets, those two models had the Exynos 2600 under the hood. All Galaxy S26 Ultra units were equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy in every market.

Samsung's Exynos 2700 just might be better than the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6

As usual for this time of year, there have been conflicting stories about how Samsung will handle the Galaxy S27 series. Now that the Exynos 2700 is considered very competitive with, if not better than, Snapdragon's new chipsets, there has been speculation about Samsung using its own chip to power the Galaxy S27 Ultra next year.
Making matters worse for Qualcomm, there are rumors about the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 chipset overheating and throttling when processing complex tasks. Someone really smart once wrote- no, make that twice wrote-that heat is the enemy of your phone's chipset.
With that in mind, this rumor had Samsung execs scrambling to call Qualcomm. Headquartered in sunny San Diego, Qualcomm responded to the rumors about thermal issues by calling them "inaccurate." Qualcomm told 9to5Google that it is "proud of the innovation and strong momentum behind our next-generation flagship platform."

Qualcomm's Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Don McGuire took to his "X" account and sent out a tweet that refuted the rumors. McGuire stated that there are "no systemic thermal issues with the 8 Elite Gen 6." He blamed the issue on the phone manufacturers tuning their platforms, trying to balance power and performance.

Qualcomm's new top-of-the-line chipset is an octa-core component

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 is an octa-core chipset with the following configuration:

• 2 x Prime Cores with a clock speed as fast as 5.01 GHz.
• 3 x Performance Cores with a clock speed as fast as 4.03 GHz.
• 3 x Efficiency Cores with a clock speed as fast as 3.74 GHz.

Compared to the previous generation, the CPU delivers 13% faster CPU performance and a 37% reduction in power consumption. The GPU is the Adreno 850 running up to 1.45 GHz.

Originally, it was believed that Samsung had until October 15 to make its decision on which chips it would use for its 2027 flagship line. But that deadline has passed, and Samsung's mobile eXperience unit is said to still be looking at benchmark performance, thermals, and pricing before making a decision on whether to use the Snapdragon Elite Extreme Gen 6 or the Exynos 2700 for the Galaxy S27 Ultra.

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