An anonymous reader shares a report: We’ve seen several smartphone brands cheat benchmarks over the years, ostensibly in a bid to earn some ill-deserved praise among enthusiasts. But a new report suggests chipset manufacturer MediaTek could be gaming these scores. AnandTech uncovered evidence of benchmark cheating by MediaTek when it received a Helio P95-powered Oppo Reno 3 Pro (European version) and a standard Dimensity 1000L-powered Oppo Reno 3 (Chinese model). The outlet’s suspicions were raised when the Reno 3 Pro beat the Reno 3 in the PCMark benchmark utility. This was strange, because the Helio P95’s Cortex-A75 CPU cores are two generations older than the Dimensity 1000L’s Cortex-A77 CPU cores. Furthermore, the P95 only had two of these cores versus the newer chip’s four heavyweight cores.
A stealth version of the PCMark benchmark utility — which manufacturers can’t identify — was installed on the Reno 3 Pro. This revealed a 30% drop in benchmark score compared to the previous questionable score, with Anandtech saying some tests in the benchmark dropped by 75%. The outlet also tested the Chinese version of the Reno 3 Pro, which swaps the Helio P95 for a Snapdragon 765G, and noted the phone ran the benchmark without resorting to cheating. AnandTech then dug into the offending device’s firmware files and found references tying benchmark apps to a so-called “sports mode.” It’s believed that this mode ramps up things like the memory controller and scheduler in order to facilitate faster performance.
of this story at Slashdot.
Source:: Slashdot