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Primate Labs
We overview loads of {hardware} at Ars, and a part of that overview course of entails operating benchmark apps. The precise apps we use might change over time and primarily based on what we’re attempting to measure, however the function is similar: to match the relative efficiency of two or extra issues and to make it possible for merchandise carry out as properly in actual life as they do on paper.
One app that has been a constant a part of our take a look at suite for over a decade is Geekbench, a CPU and GPU compute benchmark that’s releasing its sixth main model right now. Partly as a result of it is small, free, and straightforward to run; partly as a result of developer Primate Labs maintains a big searchable database spanning thousands and thousands of take a look at runs throughout thousands and thousands of units; and partly as a result of it can run on absolutely anything underneath the solar, Geekbench has turn into one of many Web’s most-used (and most-argued-about) benchmarking instruments.
“I am actually glad that folks appear to have latched onto it,” Primate Labs founder and Geekbench creator John Poole advised Ars of Geekbench’s recognition. “I do know Gordon Ung at PCWorld principally calls Geekbench the official benchmark of Twitter arguments, which is the fallout from that.”
Cross-platform proper from the beginning
Geekbench’s cross-platform compatibility is a part of its enchantment, which has been baked into the benchmark since its earliest variations. It started on the peak of the PowerPC Mac period when Apple’s {hardware} was unique and area of interest and apps that ran on Mac OS X have been comparatively uncommon.
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“I simply converted to the Mac again in about 2002,” Poole advised Ars. “So I used to be getting used to that ecosystem. After which the [Power Mac] G5 got here out and I believed, oh, this seems to be actually cool. I went out, purchased one of many new G5s, and it felt slower than my earlier Mac. And I believed, properly, that is actually unusual; what is going on on. … So, , I grabbed what [benchmarks] I might obtain and ran them and received actually confused, as a result of what the benchmarks have been saying wasn’t jiving with my expertise.
“So I truly went and I reverse-engineered one of many widespread benchmarks and located that the assessments have been, for lack of a greater phrase, horrible,” mentioned Poole. “They weren’t actually testing something substantial, , doing actually easy arithmetic operations on actually small quantities of knowledge, probably not testing something. And so I believed, how laborious can or not it’s to put in writing a benchmark? Perhaps I ought to write my very own.”
The unique Geekbench (referred to as “Geekbench 2006” and apparently misplaced to time) supported Home windows and macOS at launch. Geekbench 2, launched in 2007, added Linux assist. An official iPhone model adopted in 2010, and an Android model got here out in 2012. Since Geekbench 3 was launched in mid-2013, a revamped model with new focus areas and reformulated assessments has been launched roughly as soon as each three years or so.
And it isn’t simply mainstream, general-use {hardware} and software program that may run Geekbench. Geekbench might run on the PlayStation 3’s Cell processor (“[not] all that spectacular as a general-purpose CPU,” wrote Poole on the time). There was even, briefly, a model that ran natively on the short-lived BlackBerry 10. Right here at Ars we have run it on every part from the oddball, all-open-source MNT Reform laptop computer, the primary wave of Android Put on smartwatches, and tons of of desktops, laptops, telephones, and tablets moreover.
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