Samsung’s Tab S8 Tablets Gets Penalty Points By Geekbench
The benchmark standard Geekbench made an announcement on March 4 that's largely gone unnoticed in the media, but Geekbench announced that after testing, they had found that certain Samsung smartphones faked their performance for benchmark tests, which led them to remove those smartphones from the benchmark chart they were rated on.
Now Geekbench have announced the same for Samsung's Galaxy Tab S8 tablets.
So what does that mean?
Well, the performance of a processor, graphics processor, and RAM is controlled by the software. A very eager gamer will often overclock the performance of their computer at their own peril simply by doing so through the software that controls the main hardware. But increasing the clock rate of the processor will also increase the heat in the processor and other risky things, and there's also a limit to how much better performance a user would get.
So the considerations between a higher performance and potentially ruining the processor have to be weighed up against each other.
Naturally then, all tablet, smartphone, and computer manufacturers typically stay on the safe side of the clock rate, with the idea that there should always be a good margin of cooling and stability for the internal components even at the highest clock rate the hardware is running at.
But for years now, a few manufacturers have been caught either increasing the hardware performance temporarily when it has recognized being benchmark tested, or that it has downthrottled everything else and only ran at 100% full capacity during benchmarks.
Androidpolice have come to the conclusion that Samsung is throttling down the performance of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 tablets a little on games associated with Game Optimization Service, even though they perform optimally in benchmark tests.
Geekbench announced that they will remove the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 from the Android Benchmark chart because of it, which is the chart where different Android devices are compared to each other.
We will still be able to find the actual individual benchmark tests though. For now it just means that they will be removed from the comparative list, which is intended to be neutral and objective. This is clearly stated in Geekebcnh's policy.
So if all of this is correct, is Samsung cheating? The Tab S8 tablets are still the fastest Android tablets on the market, so they are still the ones to buy if you want performance. But Samsung still should either have been open about their policy of differentiating between a benchmark and a game, and that they are likely to downthrottle the hardware a little on games for safety reasons and longevity for the device, or they should have ran benchmarks similar to games.
And unless every smartphone, tablet, and computer is double checked in the same manner, there's little way of knowing what other devices might be doing the same, unless you notice a big discrepancy in a device you are benchmarking compared to other devices running more or less the same hardware.
– Jim Miller

Jim's passion for Apple products ignited in 2007 when Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone. This was a canon event in his life. Noticing a lack of iPad-focused content that is easy to understand even for “tech-noob”, he decided to create Tabletmonkeys in 2011.
Jim continues to share his expertise and passion for tablets, helping his audience as much as he can with his motto “One Swipe at a Time!”