Geekbench, one of the easiest benchmarks to run on a variety of computing platforms, is updated. Primate Labs ships his Geekbench 6 for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android. It says it addresses the way people use computers and phones in real life.
The new version is designed to focus on machine learning workflows and address how processors with ‘big’ and ‘small’ cores share workloads. In terms of machine learning, this means Geekbench “makes better use of the GPU.” This is because these jobs rarely use the CPU.
“The new framework and abstraction layer for our benchmarks improves these measurements across device types and environments by supporting more ML acceleration instructions, as well as more uniform GPU performance across platforms. It means a more accurate cross-platform comparison of values,” reads the Primate Labs press release.
For multi-core benchmarks, this test can quantify how the cores share tasks in a “real-world workload example”. Previously, Geekbench summed the performance of each core. It also features larger images to simulate what your phone’s camera might actually capture.
Additionally, the new Geekbench includes many new tests. Here is the list of Primate Labs:
- Background blur, such as during video conferencing
- Photo filters similar to those used in modern social media apps
- Object detection for AI workloads
- Photo library for importing photos and metadata and semantic tagging
- Text processing for parsing and transforming markdown, regular expressions, etc. in Python (more true to real developer use cases)
Primate also says it’s updating its ray tracing, horizon detection, and navigation tests while maintaining measurements like website loading, HDR handling, photo file import, and PDF rendering. These workloads are more intense and should run longer. Running the updated test took just over 3 minutes on my personal MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro.
Geekbench 6 on Windows 11
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Geekbench 6 on macOS
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The new baseline score of 2,500 is based on the Intel Core i7-12700. Despite the new features, the benchmark runs have not changed. There are also CPU and compute tests (the latter focused on GPUs), both of which are just a click away.
The new version has slightly updated pricing. No more single-user licenses. Instead, it’s free for all non-commercial use. The Pro version, which remains at $99, adds more features, including offline results, automation from the command line, and a portable version. For the next two weeks, Prime Labs is selling the Pro version for 20% off, or $79. Geekbench Pro licenses don’t carry over, so you’ll need a new license.
We use Geekbench for benchmarking laptops and gaming PCs, so expect Geekbench 6 to show up at Tom’s Hardware soon once it gathers enough comparative data to be useful.
