Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Caught Boosting Galaxy S4 Benchmarks
A recent forum post at Beyond3D made an interesting claim: that the Samsung Galaxy S4's GPU ran at 532 MHz for certain whitelisted benchmark applications, and at 480 MHz for everything else. The folks at AnandTech decided to investigate and found out that the phone does indeed let its GPU run at a higher frequency when particular benchmark software is running. They found a similar oddity with the CPU — it wasn't restricted for other apps, but it was forced to run at max speed during benchmarks. Then they decided to look for direct evidence that this was intentional.
"Poking around I came across the application changing the DVFS behavior to allow these frequency changes – TwDVFSApp.apk. Opening the file in a hex editor and looking at strings inside (or just running strings on the .odex file) pointed at what appeared to be hard coded profiles/exceptions for certain applications. The string 'BenchmarkBooster' is a particularly telling one. ... Quadrant standard, advanced, and professional, linpack (free, not paid), Benchmark Pi, and AnTuTu are all called out specifically. Nothing for GLBenchmark 2.5.1 though, despite its similar behavior."
When every sixth topic on Slashdot is about the evils and perils of Government Regulation, why are we constantly seeing examples of companies misleading, blatantly lying, to their customers? We need more teeth on consumer regulation. I bought my Samsung Galaxy S4 on certain assumptions of power. Remember Hyundai blatantly lying about their fuel numbers for half a decade? They were doled out a punishment, but the boost in sales due to in part by their chain-wide efficiency offset any net losses.
Slashdot readers will remember this, and probably choose an S4 when faced with so few choices. Samsung sees no benefit to not skewing numbers in the future.
Source, proof, evidence or STFU.
No, they don't. There is a difference between optimizing a system and overclocking just for specific benchmark apps. Samsung could get fraud charges on this one if they advertised or published the benchmarked speed. It is less obvious if they did not do the publishing themselves.
No different than how Samsung made tons of commercials poking fun of iPhone users. If you make a better product just show the product. If you make an inferior product then take cheap shots at the competition.
Yep. Apple would never make adverts poking fun at the competition...
No sig today...
There seems to be an official answer from Samsung here: http://samsungtomorrow.com/4676
It's in Korean, but here is the translation, provided by sammobile.com:
"Under ordinary conditions, the Galaxy S4 has been designed to allow a maximum GPU frequency of 533MHz. However, the maximum GPU frequency is lowered to 480MHz for certain gaming apps that may cause an overload, when they are used for a prolonged period of time in full-screen mode. Meanwhile, a maximum GPU frequency of 533MHz is applicable for running apps that are usually used in full-screen mode, such as the S Browser, Gallery, Camera, Video Player, and certain benchmarking apps, which also demand substantial performance.
The maximum GPU frequencies for the Galaxy S4 have been varied to provide optimal user experience for our customers, and were not intended to improve certain benchmark results.
We remain committed to providing our customers with the best possible user experience."
Here you go
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57593426-92/debate-sparked-about-benchmark-for-intel-arm-chips/
Meh. That link basically says that there are different results from different benchmarks. It says that it's a "not uncommon assertion" that companies "have attempted in the past to "manipulate" benchmarks", but that's not the same as finding code that overclocks the chip specifically when it's running benchmark programs
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
That's nice. It's still unethical and should be treated as such.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
I don't think we need to celebrate benchmarking phones, period. This was one of those flamebait trolling things that happened in the PC era where people boasted how superficially fast their beloved shoebox was by putting $10k worth of equipment into and liquid cooling it just to get some high number result in 3D Mark or some other meaningless program.
We don't need this for phones.
Yes phones play games, yes phones are getting faster, but realize that phones and tablets are a HUGE step back from the PC era in terms of performance so benchmarking them means you may as well drag out your dusty Pentium era PC and start boasting about good its benchmark numbers are.
Also when 80% of the apps on the Android platform are unstable POS then I don't care about how fast they crash. Even Chrome quits unexpectedly repeatedly and this is by the company that makes the Android platform on their own Nexus brand devices.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Except they're not overclocking anything because the GPU is rated for 533mhz.
They're just making sure that even if the benchmark apps don't tell it to work in it's most high performance profile that it does, because the whole point in benchmarks is to give a benchmark of the optimal performance of a device.
The danger is that if they don't do this then the benchmark programs will give a misleading view of the performance capabilities of the device because they'll only be running it in the more power saving oriented default mode.
What's the alternative, they don't do this and shitty benchmark apps that take no advantage of the optimisation options for the device suggest it's not as powerful as it really is and so they get slated for it being underpowered even if that's not true?
It doesn't. Other applications can run at 533mhz...
No. They can't. Please try reading the article.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7187/looking-at-cpugpu-benchmark-optimizations-galaxy-s-4
...all other apps/games were limited to 480MHz.
Other applications can NOT run at 533. The only applications that have access to that speed boost are benchmark apps.
The ONLY apps.
Please read the article before you continue spreading your misinformation.
It's not overclocking, it's just that Samsung underclocks their phones to save battery and to stay within the specified thermal envelope.
Only the benchmarking apps run at full speed, because they're the only apps that need the full power of the phone at all times.
Other apps can't handle the full power of the Samsung ecosystem, thus Samsung protects them from the overwhelmingly high power coolness that is the Samsung platform.
So really, everything we do is in the best interest of our customer. We protect our customers from experiencing the full power of our phones to preserve their mental cohesiveness. Anything less would open a wormhole in the fabric of reality, and we wouldn't want that.