14 DAY TRIAL // When Samsung’s Exynos 5433 chip, which powers some of the variants of the Galaxy Note 4 smartphone, debuted, it was revealed that the processor was quite a powerful little beast.
However, as advanced as the Exynos 5433 is, it didn't manage to overtake NVIDIA’s new Tegra K1 chip. This application processor is being marketed by NVIDIA as a “desktop-class” SoC, which is meant to provide high levels of performance.
For the time being, the chip architecture has been implemented only in tablets (the most notable being the Nexus 9) and Chromebooks (Acer and HP both have models taking advantage of the chip), but there’s no reason we shouldn't see some smartphones taking advantage of the chip at some point.
Samsung lashes out at NVIDIA
Anyway, Samsung doesn't seem too happy about the above-mentioned benchmark results.
So much that, according to Engadget, the Korean tech giant is suing NVIDIA for releasing misleading benchmark figures comparing the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and NVIDIA Shield Tablet, which the company claims ultimately negatively impact consumers.
We should remind you that some time ago NVIDIA filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), as well as a lawsuit in the Delaware District Court, saying Samsung products infringe some of its own GPU patents.
So we can consider Samsung’s recent retaliation a payback for the legal troubles brought in the soup by NVIDIA.
Samsung is currently claiming NVIDIA is also uses six Samsung patents without licensing them. For example, Samsung does business with Velocity Micro, which is a company relying on NVIDIA’s graphics cards.
For its parts, NVIDIA says it never did anything like tempering with the benchmark results, claiming it tested the SHIELD Tablet and Galaxy Note 4 out of the box.
Samsung was caught cheating in benchmarks a while ago
Now, if you think about it, Samsung is being a little hypocritical here. The company has been known to artificially boost the hardware on the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3 in the past. As a result, the developers of the 3D Mark benchmark app de-listed the two smartphones from their app.
However, Samsung did some penitence and was accepted back into the loving bosom, after the devices received the Android 4.4 KitKat update, which whipped out the relevant code which was responsible for boosting up the benchmark scores.
So it’s a little bit awkward to see Samsung accuse NVIDIA of the same behavior, when it was caught red-handed in a similar situation.
However, given the fact that NVIDIA was the first to take action against Samsung, the Korean tech giant probably felt the need to retaliate.
