Samsung boosts graphics in Exynos Galaxy S4 to manipulate benchmark scores

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the fastest selling Android smartphone of all times and it’s scored tremendously well in benchmarks. It would be safe to say that for many users those high benchmark scores were perceived as influencing factors or bragging rights, and in both cases were important.

What’s more - synthetic benchmarks are often taken at face value without further looking into the results. That’s what benchmarks are about after all, a quick and easy way to tell how powerful a device is compared to others.

Now however digging deeper into the Galaxy S4 reveals some very interesting things happening under the surface.

This applies to the Exynos 5 Octa based international version of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and its graphical performance in apps like games.

It turns out that while generally the PowerVR SGX 544MP3 graphics unit runs at 480MHz, whenever you start benchmarking applications like AnTuTu, Quadrant and GLBenchmark 2.5.1 Samsung unlocks an even higher clock speed of around 533MHz.

This gives the device an artificial boost that only applies to benchmarks, but does not otherwise appear in daily use and for games. That difference is a solid 10% or in some cases even more. So next time when you fire up those benchmarks, take the results with some grain of salt. Hit the source link below for a detailed study of how the Galaxy S4 manipulates benchmarks.

source: AnandTech