Be quick, CYBER MONDAY deals! Galaxy Watch 7, Samsung TV, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and Galaxy S24 Ultra.

SamMobile has affiliate and sponsored partnerships. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn a commission.

News For You
News For You
Notifications

Samsung artificially boosting Galaxy Note 3 chipset for 20-50% benchmark performance gains

Phone
By 

Last updated: October 1st, 2013 at 18:49 UTC+02:00

When Samsung was found to be messing around with the Galaxy S4 to improve its benchmark performance, it was only natural that the Galaxy Note 3 would be put under the scanner to see if Samsung was going to continue its practice of artificially boosting benchmark scores. Well, unsurprisingly, the Note 3 does have a few tricks up its sleeves when it comes to benchmarks, as was discovered by the folks over at Ars Technica.

The Snapdragon 800 variant was tested against the LG G2 (which has the same chipset), and it was found to beat the G2 by a considerable margin. As it turns out, the S4 detects certain benchmark apps and throttles the CPU to its full capacity – all four cores are clocked at the maximum of 2.26GHz for the entire duration the app runs, as opposed to a non-benchmark app, which when idle only keeps one core active at 300MHz while the other cores are turned off. The scores get boosted by up to 50 percent according to the benchmark used.

For further testing, a special version of the Geekbench 3 was created with a different package name so that it would not be detected by the device. As expected, three cores remained off and only a single core was operational, and this time the scores of the Note 3 and LG G2 were quite similar. While the Galaxy S4's chipset boosts were present in some Samsung apps as well, on the Note 3 it seems to be happening only for benchmark apps, and even the GPU seems to be affected, as was suggested by a “frame rate adjustment” code found in the system files.

Well, what can we say, just don't believe those benchmark scores that you find on Samsung's flagship devices. In fact, don't trust them at all no matter which device it may be, because in the end, it's the real-life performance that matters, and we all know real-life experience is now great on every flagship smartphone.

The source link has all the details of the test if you're interested.

Source

Phone Galaxy Note 3
Galaxy AI summarized

Scroll for more related content
News For You

You might also like

WhatsApp will stop working for some Galaxy phones by next month

WhatsApp will stop working for some Galaxy phones by next month

Meta is ending WhatsApp support for older Android OS versions, which means the messaging app will stop working on some Galaxy phones later this month. However, we wouldn't worry about it unless you're a classic Galaxy phone collector still using some of the company's original models. WhatsApp will stop working for Android 5.0 and older […]

  • By Mihai Matei
  • 1 year ago
Facebook integration in Gallery and other apps ending June 30 for old Samsung devices

Facebook integration in Gallery and other apps ending June 30 for old Samsung devices

Starting June 30, users of Samsung's Android smartphones launched between 2012 and 2014 will no longer be able to access their Facebook pictures and information in apps such as Gallery, Calendar, and the Briefing widget for the home screen. We're told the affected devices are mostly those that ran Android KitKat, Lollipop, or Marshmallow. Devices […]

  • By Abhijeet Mishra
  • 6 years ago
Samsung smartphones score top five positions in research and testing study

Samsung smartphones score top five positions in research and testing study

Samsung today announced that its smartphones have scored the top five positions in the joint study of the German testing center International Consumer Research and Testing (ICRT) and Roskachestvo, the Russian quality system. Best results were achieved by the Galaxy Note 3 and Note 4, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge as well as […]

  • By Adnan Farooqui
  • 8 years ago
Samsung has started selling refurbished flagship smartphones in the US

Samsung has started selling refurbished flagship smartphones in the US

We reported a couple of weeks ago that Samsung could soon start selling refurbished flagship Galaxy smartphones. It was said to be one of the ways the company will try to sustain the earnings momentum after its stellar performance in the second quarter of this year and it will also help Samsung maximize cost efficiency […]

  • By Adnan Farooqui
  • 8 years ago
From the Galaxy Note 3 to the Galaxy Note 5: Five Good Changes

From the Galaxy Note 3 to the Galaxy Note 5: Five Good Changes

The Galaxy Note 5 is now available, even in the coveted Gold Platinum color option, so it’s likely that fellow Note 3 users are contemplating an upgrade from their now two-year-old smartphone. We’ve heard a lot about what Note 4 users think about the Note 5, but we haven’t heard as much from Note 3 […]

  • By Deidre R.
  • 9 years ago
Photo Note for the Galaxy Note 3

Photo Note for the Galaxy Note 3

Samsung introduced two new features with the Galaxy Note 4 last year that made Galaxy Note 3 users jealous: 1) Smart Select and 2) Photo Note. We pointed out that Smart Select came to Galaxy Note 3 users, Verizon users in particular, but it turns out that the other feature also made its way to […]

  • By Deidre R.
  • 9 years ago