Latest version of Geekbench adds new tests, scoring, iOS interface

Geekbench 3 was announced on Friday in a post on Primate Labs' blog, and it is first major upgrade to Geekbench in six years. The benchmarking program is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux from Geekbench's website. Android and iOS versions are available in the Google Play Store and in the iTunes App Store.

Among Geekbench 3's new features are an array of new benchmark tests. These, Primate Labs says, are aimed at modeling real-world processor-intensive tasks. The tests cover different application domains, including encryption, image processing, signal processing, and physics simulations.

Primate Labs has also rewritten 12 benchmark tests from Geekbench 2, making them better able to represent real-world applications and typical usage.

The new version also reworks its scoring system. Now, single-core performance and multi-core performance are broken out into two separate categories. Primate Labs did so because, while more apps are beginning to use multi-core processes, single-core is still very important since every application uses it. Due to the change, Geekbench 3 scores are not comparable to Geekbench 2 scores.

The update also brings a new interface for iOS, one that is tailored to the "flat" design aesthetic introduced by Jony Ive's team with iOS 7. In addition to the new look, Geekbench 3 now automatically archives each benchmark run, and the app integrates with Dropbox for easy results sharing between devices. Geekbench also now uses JSON as its native file format across versions.

The iOS version of Geekbench is available for $1 in the App Store. The 12.5-megabyte download requires an iPhone, iPad, or iPod running iOS 6.0 or later.

Pricing for Geekbench 3 for non-mobile platforms ranges from $15 for a single-user Linux license to $200 for a single-user professional license for Geekbench 3 Pro. Customers buying a Geekbench license before August 31 can receive $5 off a single-platform license, $10 off a cross-platform license, or $50 off a professional cross-platform license. Those options are available on Primate Labs' site.