Ace of Spades HQ

July 30, 2013

Samsung Galaxy S4 cheats on benchmark tests
— Purple Avenger

File under you can't trust anyone or anything these days.

...Running any games, even the most demanding titles, returned a GPU frequency of 480MHz...
...Firing up GLBenchmark 2.5.1 however triggers a GPU clock not available elsewhere: 532MHz. The same is true for AnTuTu and Quadrant...
...We should see roughly an 11% increase in performance in GLBenchmark 2.5.1 over GFXBench 2.7.0, and we end up seeing a bit more than that. The reason for the difference? GLBenchmark 2.5.1 appears to be singled out as a benchmark that is allowed to run the GPU at the higher frequency/voltage setting.

We've seen this sort of thing in years past with PC video card drivers cheating on standard benchmarks.

The S4 is already a dazzling piece of high performance hardware. Why even bother with a cheap swindle like this? You can't get away with it and not get caught; not these days. There's just too many geeks with too many skilz out there.

Aside from the embarrassment of getting caught, offering artificially high benchmarks for generation "n" of product raises the bar that generation "n+1" needs to jump over to have a performance delta that people are willing pay for to get an upgrade.

Unless you're facing stiff, similarly performing, competition in generation "n", which Samsung is NOT, there's no economic incentive to even try cheating. Deliberately understating performance is actually more to your advantage when you have untapped design headroom and no real competition.

Dr. House: "Everybody lies."

Geeky power/heat Q and A below the fold.

Q: People are going to ask why they didn't just crank the damned thing at the 532mhz cheat speed all the time and dispense with the skullduggery?
A: The answer is undoubtedly power consumption, and (possibly) heat dissipation issues. In any given processor design and fab generation, increases in clock speed will mean higher power requirements - the logic gates on chips draw the most power when they transition from one state to another. More mhz = more state transitions/second.

Q: Why boost voltage?
A: At any given clock speed boosting voltage also increases power consumption. Watts=Volts*Amps, BUT with current fab processes, you can often run a higher clock rate (up to a point) at that higher voltage, thus increasing performances. Your heat dissipation issues ratchet up accordingly of course.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 11:12 PM | Comments (29)
Post contains 395 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Light without heat.

Posted by: model_1066 at July 30, 2013 11:25 PM (QeafI)

2 The Unbearable Lightness of Being Caught Cheating on Benchmark Testing ...

Posted by: a cynical but rarely angry Adriane at July 30, 2013 11:29 PM (Wk9TK)

3 I'm just guessing that the benchmark measure at that gives them a much better sounding number over the iphone 5 and that's part of the reason.

Posted by: buzzion at July 30, 2013 11:41 PM (LI48c)

4 Boneheads. Every where you turn, there are boneheads and cheats and fools. * wipes a tear from his eye* It will be fun to see these idiots vilified. Ars Technica better tie them to the post, and InfoWorld too. The "Green" crowd should also kick their asses comprehensively. Good catch, Purp.

Posted by: and irresolute at July 30, 2013 11:42 PM (DBH1h)

5
For any given product, service, campaign promise, etc.

Overpromise/underdeliver = lying scumbag.

Underpromise/overdeliver = hero/straight shooter

Posted by: Purp[/i][/b][/u][/s] at July 30, 2013 11:46 PM (S3yfV)

6 Hi, have no solution for you, just wanted to drop by and give the charity of my presence.

Posted by: "Jay-Z" at July 31, 2013 12:45 AM (7BwYs)

7 Samsung claims innocence. http://tinyurl.com/n39f886

Posted by: justin at July 31, 2013 01:56 AM (tclnS)

8 Who cares what the chip speed is anyway? Chip speed is only an issue for geeks still obcessing over the 8086 in their first Pentium with a "real" CD deck in it!

Posted by: Vic at July 31, 2013 02:35 AM (lZvxr)

9 Its better than my crappy Windows phone..... Almost anything is better than my crappy Windows phone. Just sayin...

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at July 31, 2013 02:41 AM (hl24d)

10 Full Video: Rush Limbaugh goes On The Record with Greta Van Susteren http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/07/full-video-rush-limbaugh-goes-on-record.html

Posted by: Steve at July 31, 2013 02:41 AM (alDW0)

11 That quack House stole my quote!

Posted by: Michael Garibaldi at July 31, 2013 02:46 AM (/D087)

12 Hmm. Too early for anybody but nerds and insomniacs and nerds with insomnia.

Posted by: joncelli at July 31, 2013 02:49 AM (5zY4+)

13 #8

You wouldn't care if a car maker lied about the horsepower their latest flagship model produced, especially if that was coupled with certain mileage expectations? Or if they misrepresented the performance by putting the engine in a mode that drastically reduced mileage but that mode was not obtainable by normal users?

There is a reason people buy high end items instead of less expensive ones. Besides those obsessed with status symbols, there are those who actually have a use for the performance they can obtain at that time for a reasonable price.

Posted by: epobirs at July 31, 2013 03:00 AM (kcfmt)

14 You wouldn't care if a car maker lied about the horsepower their latest flagship model produced, especially if that was coupled with certain mileage expectations? Or if they misrepresented the performance by putting the engine in a mode that drastically reduced mileage but that mode was not obtainable by normal users?

No I don't give a damn bout advertised HP either. Back when I did give a shit the advertised HP was always much lower for insurance purposes.

Posted by: Vic at July 31, 2013 03:10 AM (lZvxr)

Posted by: Vic at July 31, 2013 03:18 AM (lZvxr)

16 Rush is going to have a field day with this.

Posted by: Viridian at July 31, 2013 03:20 AM (5ypJ8)

17 I traded my year old Samsung Galaxy S3 in for an S4 as soon as they were available and never looked back. I own stock in Apple and own one of their products--an iPod Nano, which I hate. When my friends hand me their iPhone 5s to look at a photo, it feels so clunky in comparison to the S3, not to even mention the S4. I am not per se, an early adapter, but, I use the phone for Internet at work because I do not want my employer tracking my Internet usage, so a larger screen on a faster smart phone was a nobrainer. I was tempted by the Note 2, but, it just felt slightly too large for my "small lady" hands.

Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes C'est Magnifique at July 31, 2013 03:23 AM (kXoT0)

18 We need an "electable" moderate like Mitt Romney for 2016.

Posted by: Typical Moderate worshiper like transplanted assholes from MA at July 31, 2013 03:51 AM (lZvxr)

19 oops wrong thread

Posted by: Typical Moderate worshiper like transplanted assholes from MA at July 31, 2013 03:52 AM (lZvxr)

20 Still like Samsung better than Apple. When it's time for me to swap phones, I'll get an S4.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 31, 2013 03:59 AM (U+O64)

21 20 Still like Samsung better than Apple. When it's time for me to swap phones, I'll get an S4.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 31, 2013 07:59 AM (U+O64)

Google operating system.

That is all.

Posted by: buzzion at July 31, 2013 04:33 AM (LI48c)

22 This shows the failure of abandoning analog instrumentality. If they had a gauge and Benchmark drove the needle *this* far from the end of the red zone, who would be hollering "HEY! How come I can't do that for 6 hours in a LAN party on July 4th?"

Posted by: Chris_Balsz at July 31, 2013 04:41 AM (EN1pj)

23 Geek squared. Power consumption rises with the square of the voltage, performance pretty much linearly. So..

Posted by: phunctor at July 31, 2013 04:42 AM (NCkFb)

24 The latest versions of Android now contain SELinux, a security package donated by the NSA.

Your Samsung is now watching you fap. That is all.

Posted by: Ian S. at July 31, 2013 04:43 AM (OevbG)

25 I bought one last week. It is pretty cool, BUT the voice commands don't work as well as my four year old Droid. It is a battery pig, screen brightness? It is lighter than my old droid, but the stupid eye scroll etc doesn't work with a screen protector on and notifications for texts didn't work till I found a fix on the net. Lots of Samsung blotware you can not remove. All in all, over promoted.

Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at July 31, 2013 05:24 AM (wR+pz)

26 If your into Android premium phones, the HTC One is the better phone. The only phone to ever receive an Anandtech editors choice award. Anand loves his iPhone, but even it never received an award. Same goes with the S4. TouchWiz is so bloated and laggy, it's not funny and $699 for a creaky plastic phone is crazy. And dont forget Samsung has been caught paying trolls to post negative reviews and comments about the competition. Real classy company which I refuse to support.

Posted by: superflex at July 31, 2013 05:50 AM (4a/4i)

27 Posted by: Billy Bob, pseudo intellectal at July 31, 2013 09:24 AM (wR+pz)

I have the S3, and it is an excellent phone, with only a few minor problems. However, it too is a battery hog.

The weird thing is that my car charger takes forever to recharge it -- on the order of 8 hours. The home charger takes about 90 minutes.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 31, 2013 05:58 AM (gqgiP)

28 Samsung could have appealed to the LIVs and just done the 21st century version of amplifiers going to "11" by having settings go to "300" instead of "255".

Posted by: mikey at July 31, 2013 08:12 AM (HAWZY)

29 CharlieBrown'sDildo The reason your car charger takes so long is the low amperage it supplies to the phone. Try a charger that supplies 1 amp or greater. Mine will charge my phone to 90% in less than 1 hour. Take a look at the Kinivo micro USB charger on Amazon for $10. It supplies a total of 2.1 amps to two devices (1 amp each)

Posted by: superflex at July 31, 2013 09:04 AM (4a/4i)

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