Anandtech discovered that Samsung's flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S4, optimizes for benchmarking tools such as GLBenchmark 2.5.1, Quadrant, and AnTuTu by boosting the GPU frequency to the maximum of 533 MHz. However, other applications and games are locked at 480 MHz.
Interestingly, this phenomenon only occurs in the Galaxy S4 models equipped with the octa-core Exynos 5 Octa processor, while models with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors do not exhibit this behavior.
In response, Samsung stated that it was not intentionally increasing the frequency to boost benchmark scores, but rather selectively adjusting the frequency up or down to prevent certain apps from overheating during operation. Samsung claimed that the S Browser, gallery, camera, video player, and a few benchmarking tools would raise the GPU frequency to 533 MHz when running. However, Anandtech’s testing found that among the apps listed by Samsung, only the video player briefly increased the GPU frequency to 533 MHz, while the others operated at a lower frequency of 266 MHz.