The entire Samsung Galaxy S25 series promises the best performance ever seen from a smartphone thanks to their Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor. However, we know that Qualcomm’s latest chip can run a tad on the warm side, so can the compact Galaxy S25 really keep up with the larger and presumably cooler Galaxy S25 Ultra? I’ve run our usual benchmarks on all three units to see if any customers stand to miss out or if it’s all even-steven.
We’ll start by looking at CPU performance via GeekBench 6. Despite running the test three times, our average single-core CPU score, in particular, is a little bit lower on the regular Galaxy S25. We’re talking about 9% slower than the Plus and 12% behind the Ultra. Temperatures are the most likely culprit, with clock speeds possibly dipping lower towards the end of the test to keep things cool, but that doesn’t bode well, given GeekBench 6’s relatively short run time. Thankfully, multi-core scores are closer, with just a 2% gap between the smallest and biggest models, so real-world app performance is likely to feel identical.