Exynos 2600 keeps running hot, gaming suffers on S26

Exynos 2600 – After years of Exynos hype colliding with overheating complaints, a new Galaxy S26 Plus test suggests the problem hasn’t gone away. In back-to-back game runs, temperatures climbed faster than on a Snapdragon rival—along with aggressive performance throttling d

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 is supposed to be a reset moment. The series ships with Samsung’s custom Exynos 2600 processor, and the pitch is clear: this time, the company believes its chip is ready to compete.

But the first thing the phone did in gaming wasn’t impress—it was heat.

The broader story behind Samsung’s Exynos worries stretches back several generations. The Galaxy S23 skipped Exynos entirely due to inconsistent performance, overheating, and poor efficiency. The Galaxy S25 also sidelined it—likely influenced by Qualcomm’s major leap with the Snapdragon 8 Elite. alongside reported low yields from Samsung’s 3nm process. Exynos did show up later in last year’s Z Flip 7 with the Exynos 2500. but it wasn’t positioned as a mainstream triumph.

With the Galaxy S26 series now on the table, the question has shifted to one detail that actually matters in your hands: has Samsung solved overheating?

The testing that follows doesn’t come from theory or promises. It comes from firing up games—Asphalt Legends, Genshin Impact, and CoD Mobile—and watching both performance and temperature climb.

For a reference point, the tester didn’t use another Galaxy S26 with Snapdragon for a direct match. Instead, they compared against a Xiaomi 17 Ultra equipped with Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.

In CoD Mobile, the numbers don’t line up cleanly at first glance. The game is locked to 60fps on the Exynos Galaxy S26 Plus. while rival handsets can run at 90fps or 120fps modes—so direct comparisons are naturally harder. The test still managed to show a clear pattern in thermals and behavior, especially once the workload got heavier.

Asphalt Legends exposed the sharper gap. The longer three-minute run allowed temperatures to climb to very high levels, and the frame-rate behavior showed the cost.

The temperature story starts even before the games. The Exynos 2600 setup appears to run warmer than other flagships tested this year, even at idle. The tester describes about a 7°C difference between idle temperatures as a chip-level gap. Just flicking through menus and the home screen on the Galaxy S26 Plus was enough to lift the internal temperature above 30°C. while the Snapdragon devices stayed below that mark.

Those temperatures aren’t abstract. The test measured start temperature, maximum temperature, and mean FPS across three minutes for each game:

Asphalt Legends (3 minutes):
– Galaxy S26 Plus [Exynos 2600] — Start Temp 33.2°C, Max Temp 39.3°C, Mean FPS 12.5
– Xiaomi 17 Ultra [8 Elite Gen 5] — Start Temp 32°C, Max Temp 36.8°C, Mean FPS 16.5

CoD Mobile: BR (3 minutes):
– Galaxy S26 Plus [Exynos 2600] — Start Temp 32.0°C, Max Temp 36.8°C, Mean FPS 89.9
– Xiaomi 17 Ultra [8 Elite Gen 5] — Start Temp 34.2°C, Max Temp 36.1°C, Mean FPS 118.6

Genshin Impact (3 minutes):
– Galaxy S26 Plus [Exynos 2600] — Start Temp 33.3°C, Max Temp 36.8°C, Mean FPS 89.0
– Xiaomi 17 Ultra [8 Elite Gen 5] — Start Temp 32.1°C, Max Temp 35.5°C, Mean FPS 115.9

The second problem is how quickly the S26 Plus keeps heating up once gaming starts. The tester describes the Exynos 2600 as warming faster than rivals, with the exact difference changing by game.

In Asphalt Legends, a three-minute race raised the Exynos starting temperature by 6°C, while the Snapdragon handsets rose by 3°C. That discrepancy is “not huge,” the tester says—but when combined with the higher overall temperatures already present, it adds up fast.

CoD Mobile and Genshin Impact show similar heat-ramp behavior, with temperature increases of 4.8°C and 3.5°C respectively, still landing at marginally higher temperatures than the Snapdragon rival after just a few minutes.

The CoD Mobile case also makes another point: frame-rate caps can keep temperatures closer to the competition. The Exynos 2600’s AMD Xclipse GPU appears capped at 60fps in the tester’s CoD Mobile runs. That keeps thermals and power draw more stable than on devices that actually render up to 120fps.

Even with that cap helping, the most concerning sign comes from throttling under heavier load.

For Asphalt Legends, the tester ran a longer 13-minute gameplay session. The focus wasn’t marathon length—it was what happened under an uncapped frame-rate target when the phone got stressed. The heavy load created major performance drops during race-to-menu transitions.

The reported numbers are blunt: performance fell from 113fps to 80fps over 10 minutes. described as “quite aggressive throttling.” The tester says temperature throttling scales back more aggressively once the phone approaches and surpasses 40°C. Between the start and end of the playthrough. average performance went from 113fps to 80fps. a 29% drop over a short session.

It’s not portrayed as unusable heat. The Galaxy S26 Plus doesn’t become uncomfortable to hold, and the tester says it doesn’t overheat, become unresponsive, or lose its ability to maintain 60fps in most of the tests. Even in the worst case, temperatures approached 45°C while playing.

But the concerns don’t disappear just because the phone still runs. Two issues remain after the testing.

First, temperatures can climb very high and trigger aggressive throttling after only a few minutes—especially with a 120fps target and high graphics settings pushed in Asphalt Legends. The tester says their Snapdragon rival phone didn’t heat up nearly as quickly in that same test.

Second. some games don’t give the Exynos phone the chance to show what it might do at higher frame rates. CoD Mobile limited the handset to 60fps in the tester’s runs. Even the Pixel 10’s Tensor G5 can hit 90fps, if not the full 120fps. The tester isn’t sure whether the CoD Mobile cap is a deliberate design choice or a configuration-file limitation. but they treat it as part of the overall mismatch.

Asphalt Legends also didn’t support all the highest settings the tester toggled on for this year’s Snapdragon flagships, suggesting it may not be a one-off issue.

All of that leads to the central takeaway the tester lands on: Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus customers appear to be getting different gaming experiences depending on which chipset is inside. Snapdragon handsets. in the tester’s experience. can stay cooler under lighter gameplay workloads. which helps maintain stronger performance over longer gaming sessions. Snapdragon chips do throttle too—temperatures can rise more quickly under emulation. stress tests. and more demanding games—but the tester says that by and large. Snapdragon stays cool enough during the “lighter” workloads typical of Android games.

The tester also notes MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 delivered even cooler temperatures in their testing.

For customers, the price tag is where frustration turns into a real purchase problem. The tester says Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus customers are paying upwards of $799 for two different gaming experiences. depending on where they live. They say this has been the pattern in the past and hasn’t changed this year.

The conclusion is uncomfortable for anyone hoping the Exynos reboot would finally deliver. Galaxy S26 and S26 Plus buyers may still get playable performance. but the experience described here suggests the Exynos 2600 is warmer. throttles aggressively under heavier loads. and can fall behind in games when thermal behavior becomes the deciding factor. Samsung. the tester argues. “needs to do better”—and perhaps the company’s long-rumored custom GPU could be the piece that closes the gap.

Samsung Galaxy S26 Exynos 2600 overheating gaming performance CoD Mobile Asphalt Legends Genshin Impact Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 AMD Xclipse GPU throttling