Exynos 2600 Debuts AMD RDNA4 GPU Technology
The Exynos 2600 is Samsung’s top tier smartphone processor planned for release in 2026 and it introduces a number of important advancements. One of its biggest achievements is that it is the first smartphone chipset in the world to be manufactured using a 2 nanometer process which allows for better performance and improved power efficiency. Interestingly, this is also the first Exynos chip in many years that does not have an integrated cellular modem inside the processor itself. On the graphics side, the Exynos 2600 breaks new ground by being the first smartphone chip to use a GPU designed around AMD’s RDNA4 architecture.
A recent report from South Korean publication The Elec has disclosed new details about the graphics technology used in Samsung’s Exynos 2600 chipset. The report states that the Xclipse 960 GPU is based on AMD’s RDNA4 derived MGFX4 architecture. This newer graphics architecture is designed to deliver better overall performance while also improving energy efficiency for each compute unit, often referred to as a CU. In RDNA based GPUs, AMD organizes its processing power into workgroup processors which are the company’s official building blocks for computation. Each of these workgroup processors contains two compute units.
The Xclipse 960 GPU is said to include a total of eight workgroup processors which equals 16 compute units and it operates at a clock speed of 980MHz. This is slightly lower than the 999MHz clock speed of the Xclipse 950 GPU found in the Exynos 2500. However, despite this small drop in clock speed the newer GPU is expected to provide a significant boost in performance. It is claimed to be roughly two times faster than the Exynos 2500’s GPU overall while also delivering about a 50% improvement in ray tracing performance compared to the earlier Exynos chip.
MGFX refers to Samsung’s modified version of AMD’s RDNA GPU architecture which is normally used in desktop-grade graphics cards. To make RDNA work efficiently in smartphones, Samsung adjusted the original RDNA IP so it could fit into smaller chip designs while consuming much less power. The Exynos 2200 was the first to use this approach featuring the RDNA2 based MGFX2 architecture. Later on, Samsung used the MGFX3 architecture in both the Exynos 2400 and the Exynos 2500 chipsets.
Samsung began its collaboration with AMD on mobile GPU development in 2019, marking the start of a long term partnership focused on improving smartphone graphics. The first major outcome of this collaboration was the Exynos 2200 which introduced AMD based graphics to Samsung’s mobile chipsets. This partnership continued for several generations including the Exynos 2400 in 2024 and the Exynos 2500 in 2025 both of which featured GPUs co-developed by AMD and Samsung. With the Exynos 2600, Samsung still relies on AMD’s RDNA4 graphics architecture but the actual GPU development was handled internally by Samsung. According to reports, the Exynos 2800 will mark a major shift as it is expected to be the first Exynos chip to use a GPU architecture fully designed by Samsung.
Although Samsung has made many promises about the Exynos 2600’s capabilities, its actual performance in real world situations is still unknown. People want to see how well it handle gaming, multitasking and power efficiency under real world conditions. Another point of interest will be how the Exynos 2600 stacks up against similar chip from competitors like Apple, MediaTek and Qualcomm especially in terms of speed, graphics performance and battery usage.
