HTC openly admitted that their new HTC One M8 device could detect a benchmark app profiling the devices performance and by doing so would enter a high performance mode where every setting would be maximised.
What this effectively meant was that the benchmark results where exaggerated to a point where the results would never represent a real-world use case scenario, but would mean that the HTC One M8 would top the charts.
Futuremark, quite rightly so, haven’t taken too kindly to the antics employed by HTC and as a result have relegated the device to the bottom of the charts below another 1000 devices for effectively cheating the system.
We have delisted the new HTC One (M8) from our 3DMark benchmark rankings because it does not comply with our rules for manufacturers. Specifically, “The platform may not detect the launch of the benchmark executable. The platform must not…modify the usual functioning of the platform based on the detection of the benchmark.”
Whilst HTC claim they don’t see a problem with this, and it only represents a case where a developer could squeeze every ounce of performance from the device, have we begun to see the beginning of a time where we can no longer trust benchmark scores as manufacturers begin to develop ways to always come out on top?
“have we begun to see the beginning of a time where we can no longer trust benchmark scores”
Begun? Benchmarks haven’t been a viable was to Guage anything in a while!