Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7 benchmarked: Exynos 2500 still has a long way to go

I used the Galaxy Z Flip 7 for the better part of a month now, and I have to say that the foldable is much better than I imagined. The increased cover panel gives it much better versatility, and while Samsung still doesn't allow the use of apps, it's easy to get around that limitation.

Interestingly, Samsung used its in-house Exynos 2500 chipset on all global models of the Galaxy Z Flip 7, deviating from Qualcomm silicon. While recent Exynos designs have been panned (for good reason), Samsung LSI seems to have learned from its mistakes.

The Flip 7 still isn't in the same league as the Vivo X200 Pro, Galaxy S25, and other regular phones, but it is quite decent in the context of foldables. The inherent nature of the Flip 7 doesn't allow the inclusion of a sizeable thermal management layer, and as a consequence, it doesn't hold up anywhere as well in demanding use cases.

However, this is the case with all foldables, and the Flip 7 has a decent showing against the likes of the Vivo X Fold 5 and the Find N5, even if it doesn't quite measure up in some areas.

More CPU cores than you'll know what to do with

The Exynos 2500 is built on Samsung Semiconductor's 3nm Gate All Around (GAA) node, which is interesting in its own right as TSMC is still reliant on FinFET, with the Taiwanese fab not switching to GAA until the 2nm revision. With the Exynos 2500, the move to 3nm brings considerable efficiency gains, and that's borne out in everyday use; the foldable has a bigger 4,300mAh battery, and it manages to last up to a day with medium use — something that just wasn't possible on the Z Flip 6.

While it misses out on custom cores, Samsung LSI went with the latest Arm cores, and there are ten in total, two more than what you get on most mobile chipsets. I think ten cores are overkill, but Samsung clearly wanted to deliver better performance out of the workhorse cores.

As a result, the Exynos 2500 sees one Cortex X5 core clocked at 3.3GHz, and it is joined by two Cortex A725 cores at 2.74GHz, alongside five A725 running at 2.36GHz. You get the usual dual-core Cortex A520 at 1.8GHz to round out the design.

Geekbench testing shows that having more cores doesn't actually make a difference; the multi-core score is lower than the Snapdragon 8 Elite and Dimensity 9400, only outmatching the older Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Similarly, the single-core result is among the lowest I've seen on any device, with even the Dimensity 8400-toting mid-range POCO X7 Pro coming close (1573).

Much like Google with its Tensor platform, it's clear that Samsung LSI was focused on delivering better gains than previous generations of Exynos designs rather than measuring up to what Qualcomm and MediaTek are doing in this category. While the Exynos 2500 doesn't score well in synthetic workloads, it has a much better showing in regular use. I didn't see much in the way of slowdowns or lag, and it just wasn't a problem in the month I used the foldable.

Samsung did a good job optimizing the hardware, and even though it may not be the best mobile platform by a long shot, it is definitely better than earlier Exynos models.

A GPU upgrade that actually makes sense

The Exynos 2500 features an AMD RDNA 3-based Xclipse 950 GPU, and it has noticeable gains over preceding models. You get hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and even if the tech isn't being leveraged in many mobile games now, that's set to change over the coming years.

The Xclipse 950 has OpenGL ES 3.2, OpenCL 2.0, DirectX 12, and Vulkan 1.1 integration, and it delivers QHD gaming at 144Hz, which is a moot point on the Z Flip 7 as the foldable is limited to 120Hz.

The Xclipse 950 has a much better showing, and while it doesn't measure up to current-gen Qualcomm and MediaTek rivals, it is markedly better than the Exynos 2400. Overheating and aggressive thermal throttling were a mainstay on earlier Exynos models, and that's thankfully not an issue on the Exynos 2500; the Flip 7 didn't overheat even in extended gaming sessions, and throttling was nowhere as pronounced.

Even though the hardware isn't the best you can get today, I enjoyed using the Galaxy Z Flip 7. Exynos 2500 isn't anywhere as limiting to use, and that alone is noteworthy. It's evident that Samsung doesn't want to rely entirely on Qualcomm when it comes to its high-end devices, and the changes to Exynos 2500 are meaningful. It will be interesting to see how Samsung can iterate on the design next year, but this is a good start.