Apple is paying Geekbench to beat Samsung?

Geekbench is a popular benchmarking platform, which is widely used by smart gadget users. Talking specifically about Geekbench smartphone tests, Apple always beats Android phones including Samsung even with Qualcomm’s most premium application processors.

In a recent development, Geekbench announced a breakthrough in its portfolio, bringing version 6 of the benchmarking platform. As soon as Geekbench 6 went live, people tested their devices and found radically increased differences in single and multi-core scores between Apple and Samsung.

And here began a controversial debate…

Folks over at PhoneArena gathered consumer reports complaining that the Geekbench platform always favors Apple. Even though it is said that the iPhone maker pays Geekbench to defeat rivals, of course, it’s Samsung as Galaxy devices always stand behind iPhones in both single and multi-core tests.

The latest Galaxy S23 Ultra has already outperformed other Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 rivals, thanks to Samsung’s collaboration with Qualcomm for a custom SoC. The device was tested on Geekbench 5 and got defeated by Apple’s latest iPhone 14 Pro (Max), but, the score difference greatly widened in Geekbench 6.

Geekbench 5 scores (rounded up)

• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  • Single-core: 1,600
  • Multi-core: 5,000
• iPhone 14 Pro
  • Single-core: 1,900
  • Multi-core: 5,500

Geekbench 6 scores (rounded up)

• Galaxy S23 Ultra
  • Single-core: 1,900
  • Multi-core: 5,100
• iPhone 14 Pro
  • Single-core: 2,500
  • Multi-core: 6,500

As you can see in the rounded-up figures, the benchmark scores different between the Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro were way too less compared to the scores on Geekbench 6. Samsung’s latest flagship got just a 6% score boost on the new Geekbench, while the iPhone 14 Pro scores are whopping 21% higher.

Die-hard Apple blog AppleInsider created a giant article defending allegations arising against Apple in the Geekbench controversy. They have even mentioned the incident when Samsung was caught adjusting some Galaxy phones to rank up in Geekbench during GOS throttling issues.

Anyways, it’s undoubtedly true that just benchmark results are not the only aspect of competition between or among phones. There are various factors such as different operating systems, functional/algorithmic codes, and operational mechanisms.

Don’t rely on benchmark scores to pick the best phone for yourself!