Samsung caught artificially inflating Galaxy S4 benchmark results, fires back non-explanatory explanation

Samsung caught artificially inflating Galaxy S4 benchmark results, fires back non-explanatory explanation

Good, reliable benchmarks are important, but the only way to make certain they operate as intended is if they’re treated the same way by the hardware platforms they run on. When applications or processors start treating certain tests differently than others, it warps final results and leaves reviewers and readers with an inaccurate idea of total performance. Samsung is the latest company to get caught with its pants down in this regard; the company’s Galaxy S4 is artificially setting its GPU at a higher clock speed when it encounters a benchmark, and then reverting to the stock clock speed when you shift back to normal workloads.

Samsung

Specifically, the international version of the Galaxy S4 (the one equipped with Samsung’s Exynos 5410 Octa) will boost the GPU clock to 532MHz, from 480MHz, if it detects that GLBenchmark 2.5.1, Antutu, or Quadrant is running. The team at Anandtech that investigated the problem dug further, and discovered a function, dubbed “BenchmarkBooster” buried inside the dynamic voltage and frequency scaling APK. That allows the GPU to set specific frequencies for specific titles.

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