Detecting for Benchmarks: A Blast from the Past

I recall the controversy over NVIDIA cheating in 3DMark. I remember the internet rage and how much crud was flung over NVIDIA’s GeForce FX because of these kinds of antics. Now with Samsung (and potentially others) caught pulling off these kinds of stunts in smartphones, I’m left wondering if we’ll see something similar.

It’s actually been a couple of days since the AnandTech posted their investigation and not much buzz surrounded it. What happened? We stopped caring about just one benchmark. GL Benchmark — and most theoretical benchmarks for that matter — lost relevancy after the NVIDIA and 3DMark controversy. Reviewers and users stopped giving these theoretical benchmarks weight. It’s about user performance and real world testing.

These kinds of shady optimizations should not be condoned though. They still muddy reviews and Samsung and the likes should be called out for it.