Samsung Tweaked OS to Cheat Benchmarks on Galaxy S4

[Foxi4]

Looks like Samsung's response is exactly as I predicted - overheating prevention.

 

[raulpica]

Disclaimer: I own a Samsung GS3 and I'm not an Apple Fanboi.

To be fair, everybody would be jumping on Apple if this were them.

"Told you, Apple is evil. Zombie Steve Jobs killed my dog and destroyed my Samsung cellphone. Worst of all Apple fanbois also broke my car's windows!"

Looks like Samsung's response is exactly as I predicted - overheating prevention.

Totally! Someone at Samsung must've confused things and called the function "BenchmarkBooster" instead of "OverheatPrevention"

 

[Foxi4]

Totally! Someone at Samsung must've confused things and called the function "BenchmarkBooster" instead of "OverheatPrevention"

Read post above.

For the sake of the benchmark, the phone goes full-blast but normal operation at those values would simply cause the phone to be a battery gobbler as well as a portable heater.

 

[raulpica]

Read post above.

For the sake of the benchmark, the phone goes full-blast but normal operation at those values would simply cause the phone to be a battery gobbler as well as a portable heater.

Benchmarks NEED to reflect daily usage - you don't actually sell an i7 as an 4,5GHz just because it can. You sell it for the NOMINAL frequency.

Same should go for the S4. The cellphone usually runs at 480? Cool. You benchmark it as 480MHz. Users want to overclock it? That's fine. But it's their choice.

There's a lot of people who DON'T overclock (I don't) and like to have a decent and unbiased comparison of their terminals with the others around. I also look at benchmarks before buying stuff.

I for one, only pick top-scoring smartphones, and as such the faked benchmark could've altered my decision of buying an S4 or not. And a lot of other people do that.

What Samsung is doing is cheating just to sell a bit more.

 

[Foxi4]

Benchmarks NEED to reflect daily usage - you don't actually sell an i7 as an 4,5GHz just because it can. You sell it for the NOMINAL frequency.

That's the whole point though - 480MHz is not the nominal frequency, it's underclocked. Similarily PSP's used to be sold running at 222MHz despite having a 333MHz processor. Of course it's confusing to the customer but it's made this way to "show what the handset can do when it goes full blast", I can see the logic behind doing so. Not saying that it's fair or ethical - as I said, there should be a "High Performance" mode available for users to switch on.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I don't think it's cheating per-se and here's my reasoning:

• The benchmarking process is supposed to measure the maximum possible performance of hardware
• Normally portable handsets run on underclocked values to preserve battery life and prevent overheating which may damage your handset in the long run
• While running a benchmark, the hardware goes full-blast. Those values are not overclocked - they're the maximum possible values for the chips
• If you're skilled enough, you can manually select the higher stepping, however it's locked out for normal operation to prevent the forementioned overheating and draining the battery

Now, what Samsung should've done to be 100% "clean" was to embed a so-called "High Performance" mode which the user could switch to after agreeing (by checking a checkbox) that doing so may cause damage to the handset in high temperature/low air circulation conditions as well as severely lower the battery life of the overall setup. That way it'd be up to to the user to use those values and risk damaging the handset if it does go into total meltdown. The way it's been handled makes it seem fishy but I can see the logic behind it.

This.

Also, you guys seem to forget that if you really absolutely want to achieve the maximum performance the GPU is capable of, you can just y'know, OC it yourself? To be fair, I'm sure Samsung doesn't have it clocked that high normally because it could damage the phone. I have one and the thing gets hot enough with stock settings.

 

[Rydian]

That's the whole point though - 480MHz is not the nominal frequency, it's underclocked. Similarily PSP's used to be sold running at 222MHz despite having a 333MHz processor. Of course it's confusing to the customer but it's made this way to "show what the handset can do when it goes full blast", I can see the logic behind doing so. Not saying that it's fair or ethical - as I said, there should be a "High Performance" mode available for users to switch on.

I'm of the belief that a product should be advertised and sold on what it does. Not what it could do if a user edited it.

Like, it's not right for Dell to advertise a computer with an Intel IGP as maxing Crysis 2 because the computer could do that if you installed a good GPU and replaced the PSU or whatever.

To be fair, I'm sure Samsung doesn't have it clocked that high normally because it could damage the phone. I have one and the thing gets hot enough with stock settings.

... which is another reason why they shouldn't advertise it as having that performance.

This is blatantly dishonest.

 

[Foxi4]

I'm of the belief that a product should be advertised and sold on what it does. Not what it could do if a user edited it.

Like, it's not right for Dell to advertise a computer with an Intel IGP as maxing Crysis 2 because the computer could do that if you installed a good GPU and replaced the PSU or whatever.

... which is another reason why they shouldn't advertise it as having that performance.

This is blatantly dishonest.

Dishonest, yes. Technologically false? No. I'm not entirely with you on the whole "different GPU and PSU" analogy because that entails an actual difference in hardware. The S4 on its stock hardware with no applied modifications is entirely capable of reaching the scores shown by those benchmarks as long as it goes full-blast, it just doesn't on a day-to-day basis. I too think that these values should be made available to users who do need them, not just "available in bechmarks and select applications" - that part is dishonest. That being said, it's still the S4 reaching those particular scores - that part is entirely valid.

 

[Rydian]

[...]as long as it goes full-blast, it just doesn't on a day-to-day basis.[...]

Only Samsung-whitelisted apps, if the report is correct.

That being said, it's still the S4 reaching those particular scores - that part is entirely valid.

Just like the Dell can play Crysis 2 on max, entirely valid. I mean it doesn't do it as it's sold to you... but it can do it!

It's modified, aftermarket. Hardware or software, editing by the user is needed, that's why this is dishonest.

Though it's not like this is uncommon, people cheat on benchmarks all the time. Like how ISPs would undo speed limits on connections to speed test sites, etc.

 

[pasc]

Hmm... can't really be surprised.

 

[BORTZ]

Remember it's not unethical until someone catches you doing cheating the system.

I think that only works with Communism.