Well we all know that benchmarks are a useful marketing tool but have little relevance to real world usage. If what Anandtech have dug out is true, it seems that's even more true with the Galaxy S4, and especially the Exynos version:
AnandTech | Looking at CPU/GPU Benchmark Optimizations in Galaxy S 4
The main points are that:
* the GPU in the Exynos version overclocks when running certain benchmark apps to a higher frequency than will be reached when running anything else, no matter how intensive
* the CPU governor behaves similarly: although it doesn't overclock, it does switch to the A15s with a fixed minimum frequency the moment you start these apps, no matter how low the load/
* the Qualcomm variants are similar: load the same apps and they run all 4 cores at max clock, even if you aren't actively running the benchmark (e.g. are just sitting looking at the benchmark app's menu)
* there's software on the phones controlling this behaviour with a hard-coded list of benchmark apps triggering it.
So it seems that at least one manufacturer has recognised the importance of benchmark scores to some customers and hard-coded to maximise performance in some popular benchmarks. You can argue about the CPU governor trickery if you like (that cpu governor setting doesn't reflect real-world behaviour, but it's not actually exceeding the maximum the system could produce if loaded hard enough), but overclocking the GPU above what you can ever get outside of the benchmark app smells to me.
Of course we don't know whether Sammy are the only ones to have thought of this wheeze, just that they seem to have been caught. But as Anand and Brian say, it would be better if the work that went into this had been devoted to optimising real world performance.
Moral: take benchmark scores with an even larger pinch of salt than ever
.
AnandTech | Looking at CPU/GPU Benchmark Optimizations in Galaxy S 4
The main points are that:
* the GPU in the Exynos version overclocks when running certain benchmark apps to a higher frequency than will be reached when running anything else, no matter how intensive
* the CPU governor behaves similarly: although it doesn't overclock, it does switch to the A15s with a fixed minimum frequency the moment you start these apps, no matter how low the load/
* the Qualcomm variants are similar: load the same apps and they run all 4 cores at max clock, even if you aren't actively running the benchmark (e.g. are just sitting looking at the benchmark app's menu)
* there's software on the phones controlling this behaviour with a hard-coded list of benchmark apps triggering it.
So it seems that at least one manufacturer has recognised the importance of benchmark scores to some customers and hard-coded to maximise performance in some popular benchmarks. You can argue about the CPU governor trickery if you like (that cpu governor setting doesn't reflect real-world behaviour, but it's not actually exceeding the maximum the system could produce if loaded hard enough), but overclocking the GPU above what you can ever get outside of the benchmark app smells to me.
Of course we don't know whether Sammy are the only ones to have thought of this wheeze, just that they seem to have been caught. But as Anand and Brian say, it would be better if the work that went into this had been devoted to optimising real world performance.
Moral: take benchmark scores with an even larger pinch of salt than ever
.
are you using the phone or is it a paper weight now?
