So, a CPU might hit its maximum speed when opening an app and then settle to idling speed after an app is open. The CPU on an SoC will also increase or decrease its frequency depending on the application being run. This combination of cores helps in power and thermal management. Intensive tasks like gaming are handled by the big cores. The idea is that tasks requiring low power - like background applications, playing music, etc. The former are battery intensive and the latter are not. In this design, a set of high-performance cores (Big) are paired with a set of low-performance ones (Little). Most mobile CPUs today use the so-called big.LITTLE architecture.

When testing the OnePlus 3T, XDA noted that the Snapdragon 821 chipset used was forced to run at a higher base clock whenever a benchmark app was detected.īefore we dive into the details of the cheating though, a small explainer on how mobile CPUs work is in order. It looks like OnePlus and Meizu are unconcerned. Given the backlash from the community, we assumed that manufacturers valued their own community enough to avoid practices like this. Notably, Samsung and HTC were called out for artificially boosting performance in benchmarking apps. In 2013, it was discovered that just about every smartphone manufacturer was cheating on benchmark.

OnePlus has even admitted as much and promises to not do it in the future. A group of XDA developers have confirmed that OnePlus and Meizu are cheating on benchmarks.

Oneplus geekbench over cheating