From Now On, Geekbench Will No Longer Accept Unreleased Device Test Scores

Geekbench has long served as a place to score pre-release device performance. (photo credit: geekbench)

JAKARTA - Primate Labs, the developer of the Geekbench software, has decided to stop displaying benchmark results, but only the unreleased hardware. That means, no more initial Geekbench scores for Alder Lake devices and all future CPU architectures, and devices that haven't been officially released yet.

The news was shared by @BenchLeaks on Twitter, who said a page on the Geekbench website now contains the message, “Primate Labs is preventing pre-release hardware benchmark results from being displayed in the Geekbench Browser. Pre-release hardware includes engineering samples (ES), qualifying samples (QS), and retail hardware that is not yet available for sale," he wrote.

Quoted from Digital Trends, Thursday, October 7, while disappointing, the change was probably for the best. Pre-release benchmarks aren't always the best way to measure device performance, even if those benchmark scores give enthusiasts something to watch out for as they anticipate new hardware launches.

This is evidenced by Intel's Alder Lake benchmark scores leaked from Geekbench, and test results in August showed that the Core i7-12700 chip fell short of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X in single-core and multi-core benchmarks. However, another run on the Core i9-12900K later in the month showed the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X far superior.

Geekbench has long served as a place to score the performance of pre-release devices, from CPUs to graphics cards, and even smartphones. Primate Labs has shown that it is willing to take steps to maintain its credibility.