An Exynos Galaxy S21 Ultra model has just been sighted online once again, and this particular benchmark seems to be the best kind of news there is. But not because it managed to achieve some pretty remarkable scores in both single- and multi-core performance. It did, but we're still talking about arbitrary synthetic tests that aren't directly applicable to real-world performance.
Instead, this fresh Geekbench 5 listing seemingly confirms that South Korea will be going back to the Exynos variants of Samsung's flagships. As it clearly relates model number SM-G998N to the Exynos 2100. That would be Samsung's next high-end system-on-a-chip that we half-expected would get announced yesterday. Alas, we're still waiting for a proper launch, though Samsung at least gave us an… animated short?
Would Samsung risk its image of an innovator on its home turf?
Regardless, the fact that the next premium Exynos chip will actually be found inside the next premium Galaxy series sold in South Korea is pretty significant. Because while it's far from its largest market, Samsung cares a great deal about how it presents itself on its home turf. To the point that it would rather pay a premium to Qualcomm than risk selling anything so much as resembling a dud to Korean consumers.
And this year's Exynos 990 did more than just resemble a miss, mind you. As Samsung's chip experts reportedly felt humiliated after Qualcomm humbled it with the Snapdragon 865 and 865+.
We are also happy to report that this likely Galaxy S21 Ultra benchmark listing adds even more weight to recent rumors about Samsung giving up on its custom “Mongoose” cores. The Exynos 2100 instead appears to be using a typical ARMv8 architecture. This would, in theory, solve so many Exynos performance problems at once that we can only hope it actually ends up happening.
