Hunt MediaTek altering the benchmark tests and the company confirms it, but justified

Alter the performance testing is not something new as there have been several manufacturers of mobile had to make an excuse to modifyas Samsung in 2013 or OnePlus in 2017. And now something similar has happened with MediaTek: the manufacturer takes performance to the maximum of their processors when the mobile detects a benchmark.

The performance testing or benchmarking are often the tests that are used to know where to draw the power of a device, also a mobile. Are not 100 % reliable, particularly as a tool to define the capabilities of a phone: the benchmarks do not demonstrate the general operation of a device, only the highest point can reach. For this reason, there are many companies that have been hunted trucando benchmarks so that we can make to see that their products are more powerful, as has happened recently to MediaTek. And what has been confirmed: the manufacturer of processors includes a firmware in their drivers that lift the power to the maximum when the mobile detects a performance test.

If a benchmark test the phone what you must use all your power?

The start of all the controversy is found in a article from Anandtech. In it, the media accused MediaTek of tweaking their processors for the mobile phones are equipped with them offer their maximum performance when they detect the start of an application benchmark. And the key lies in the word ‘tweaking’ (‘Cheat’ in English), a term that MediaTek defends. Because, if a performance test should clarify how powerful is a phone, you do not have to be used all of the available capacity so as to clarify the maximum amount that you can get?

Although the reasoning that a performance test should show how powerful a device, which does not seem too ethical is that the manufacturer of the processor to include an XML file in the firmware of their controllers dedicated to detect applications benchmark. Such and as demonstrated by Anandtech, the XML file lists the ids of the benchmark tests more known to the processor to activate its maximum performance during the test. Positions to be transparent, the most logical thing would be to raise the performance of the SoC in accordance with the application demands performance, not putting the processor to the maximum only to apps default.

MediaTek has been advocated in the press release alluding to that raise the performance of the processors during the benchmark tests is a measure commonly used in industry. According to the release, manufacturers that integrate MediaTek processors are aware of the modifications to the firmware to alter the testing benchmarks; and that these are the manufacturers who decide whether to incorporate or not to your mobile. This is the reason that some mobile phones get different numbers in the tests despite sharing the same processor.

According To MediaTek:

The benchmark tests measure how it works a mobile phone taken to the extreme, in theory it’s the same thing that happens when you turn on the performance mode to boot a game like Fortnite. Therefore, modify the phone in order to raise the figures during the tests may look legitimate, but it is not as if you use those numbers to compare them with a mobile phone who has not used any form of modification. Because, what should be undervalued and those manufacturers who decide not to use these techniques in their phones?

Via | Anandtech

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Hunt MediaTek altering the benchmark tests and the company confirms it, but justified

it was originally published in

Xataka Android

by
Ivan Linares

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