Skip to main content

Samsung claims innocence in face of benchmark-rigging allegations

Samsung claims innocence in face of benchmark-rigging allegations

Share this story

Samsung Galaxy S4 in hand (875px)
Samsung Galaxy S4 in hand (875px)

Samsung has responded to allegations made by AnandTech, claiming that it is innocent of any wrongdoing. Yesterday, the site reported that Samsung engineered the Galaxy S4's benchmarking performance by allowing the GPU to run a higher clock speed than normal (533MHz vs. 480MHz), giving an 11 percent boost that users would not be able to attain under normal conditions. Samsung's response? "[We] did not use a specific tool on purpose to achieve higher benchmark scores."

Samsung adds that, "under normal conditions, the Galaxy S4 operates up to 533MHz at its best performance." The Korean manufacturer says certain "full screen apps" (any app in which the status bar isn't present) such as the camera, browser, video player, and benchmarking tools, are classified as requiring the highest performance available. Many games don't require the maximum clock speed to run, the company notes, claiming "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."

Samsung has yet to address AnandTech's discovery of strings of code that implied specific benchmark apps were being targeted for higher clock speeds, but the site did note that other benchmark apps that are not explicitly mentioned in code were also behaving the same way.