Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra benchmarks just leaked — here's how it stacks up to iPhone 17 Pro Max

A new listing on Geekbench may have revealed just how powerful the Samsung Galaxy S26 series phones will be, although the results could fall behind some of the competition.

The apparent listings for both the Galaxy S26 Ultra and Galaxy S26 Plus were first spotted by GSMArena under the model numbers SM-S948 and SM-S942. Both phones in the listing feature 12GB of RAM and Android 16, but the chip they use is where things get interesting.

Both of the phones are listed with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC, indicated by the presence of the Adreno 840 GPU in the results sheets. But despite that, the S26 Plus and S26 Ultra's scores differ, both from each other and the OnePlus 15, one of the best Android phones that already launched with the 8 Elite Gen 5 chip.

The scores reveal an odd situation where the Galaxy S26 Ultra scores noticeably lower than the S26 Plus. On their own, these scores are still a marked improvement over the current Galaxy S25 series, but neither outperforms the OnePlus 15, despite Samsung usually using an overclocked version of Qualcomm’s chips compared to the version included in other Android devices.

Meanwhile, the reported Galaxy S26 Ultra and Galaxy S26 Plus show a higher multi-core score than the iPhone 17 Pro Max, but fall behind in the single-core score, which follows the usual trend with Apple vs Samsung chips.

Hopefully, Samsung isn't done tuning its chips yet, otherwise, we could be in for an unpleasant surprise when the phone actually launches.

What else do we know about the Galaxy S26 Ultra?

Seeing relatively lower scores on the apparent next generation of Samsung phones is a bit disheartening. However, Geekbench scores aren’t always the best representation of how well a device will actually perform, nor should we look at them in a vacuum when considering the value of a device.

We have seen several leaks over the last few months that have indicated that the Galaxy S26 Ultra could feature some needed changes to improve the user experience. The S26 Ultra is stated to be thinner than the Galaxy S25 Ultra. We’ve also seen indications that Samsung could increase the charging speed from 45W to 60W. Samsung could also include a new 24MP photo mode for the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s 200MP main camera.

While these scores are certainly interesting, we shouldn’t compare them to other devices just yet, at least until we have a chance to test the final product ourselves. On that note, it appears that the rumors that Samsung will be delaying its next Galaxy Unpacked until February 25, meaning we likely won’t see the phone on shelves until early March.

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