Is Samsung the Lance Armstrong of technology? Did they deliberately design its Galaxy S4 chip to perform better in tests used by reviewers?

The company says no. But the industry says yes.

The South Korean giant has been accused of boosting the performance of its flagship smartphone by allowing its hardware to run faster in certain benchmarking apps, achieving an 11% increase.

Following an investigation by AnandTech, a post on the Beyond3D forum claims GPU in different models of the phone ran at higher clock speeds in certain review tests.

In what could be technology's version of a Lance Armstrong scandal, replace the shamed American cyclist with Samsung, the banned drug EPO with GPU and bang - we have a controversy.

Leading with "Oh hell Samsung, shame on you!" member Nebuchadnezzar kick-started the debate, in which the company's integrity has been brought into question.

"This GPU does not run 532MHz; that frequency level is solely reserved for Antutu and GLBenchmark among things," the post read.

But in response to the accusations, Samsung has come out fighting. While acknowledging the two different scenarios produced different results, the company claimed its aim was to prevent users experiencing a fault.

The official line winging its way out of Samsung HQ was that: "[We] did not use a specific tool on purpose to achieve higher benchmark scores."

"Under normal conditions, the Galaxy S4 operates up to 533MHz at its best performance," the company added.

"The maximum GPU frequencies for the Galaxy S4 have been varied to provide optimal user experience for our customers, and were not intended to improve certain benchmark results."

Is Samsung guilty of any wrongdoing? Tell us your thoughts below