HIGHLIGHTS
- Xiaomi, according to the co-founder of the renowned Geekbench programme, is restricting performance.
- Xiaomi appears to be slowing benchmark applications masquerading as games while running them normally at full speed.
Samsung was recently in the headlines when it was revealed that the corporation was deliberately limiting a range of games but not slowing down benchmark applications. This comes a year after OnePlus was discovered to be doing something similar, and now it appears like Xiaomi may be joining the party as well.
On Twitter, Geekbench co-founder John Poole stated that Xiaomi is also restricting performance based on app titles. He discovered that disguising the Geekbench benchmarking programme as the popular Fortnite game reduced single-core performance results by a whopping 30%. Meanwhile, multi-core scores appear to have plummeted by 15%.
Poole went on to say that he noticed similar hampered behaviour when the Geekbench software was disguised as Genshin Impact. All of this signals that Xiaomi is slowing games (it's unclear whether other applications are affected), presumably to address temperature problems and increase battery life.
It's not uncommon for smartphone manufacturers to limit demanding apps for these reasons, but the lack of openness here is disheartening once again. The fact that Xiaomi does not appear to limit benchmarks is another a red flag, since these results would not reflect real-world performance.
This isn't the first time Xiaomi has been accused of app-based throttling; Anandtech tested the Xiaomi 11T Pro last year and found identical behaviour. Poole's test, however, comes amid increasing scrutiny of the technique after industry behemoth Samsung was chastised for the same issue. Samsung ultimately released an update for the Galaxy S22 series that included a performance priority setting in the Game Launcher.
We requested Xiaomi to clarify its throttling procedures and to comment on its apparent choice to allow benchmark applications to run unthrottled. If/when the corporation responds, we'll update the article.
