OnePlus has already confirmed that it will stop the enhancements that lead to artificial benchmark numbers.
OnePlus and Meizu are manipulating results of benchmark tests, says a repory by XDA Developers. Specifically, the OnePlus 3T and the Meizu Pro 6 have been found guilty. According to XDA’s report, these smartphones detect when benchmark tests are being run and perform differently in order to produce better benchmark results.
XDA noted than when opening certain benchmarking apps, the OnePlus 3T’s cores would stay above 0.98GHz for the little cores and 1.29GHz for the big cores. Usually, both cores drop to 0.31GHz when there is no load. It seems the OnePlus 3T was targeting specific benchmarks by name and was entering a different mode, unknown to users, in order to increase scores. XDA partnered with Primate Labs, the creators of Geekbench, who provided them with a different version of the benchmark. This version was designed to avoid any benchmark detection and run the app as normal.
The website noted that the difference in individual runs on the OnePlus 3T were not very high. However, the difference in scores were more pronounced in the Meizu Pro 6. XDA noted that Meizu seems to be tuning its device to detect benchmarking apps and kick into a higher gear. XDA's report noted that Meizu often doesn't allow the power intensive cores on its SoCs come alive, whereas, in this case they're being used to the fullest. The graphs below were presented by XDA to show their findings.
XDA contacted OnePlus, who promised to stop targeting benchmarking apps, but said it would keep the enhancements for games. It said that future builds of OxygenOS will not be triggered by benchmarks. “In order to give users a better user experience in resource intensive apps and games, especially graphically intensive ones, we implemented certain mechanisms in the community and Nougat builds to trigger the processor to run more aggressively. The trigger process for benchmarking apps will not be present in upcoming OxygenOS builds on the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T,” OnePlus stated.
This isn’t the first time smartphone makers have been caught cheating on benchmark tests. Back in 2013, AnandTech revealed that Samsung, along with most other smartphone manufacturers were cheating during testing. XDA, though says that the offenders from AnandTech's tests were not found guilty this time.
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Shrey Pacheco
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