Cinebench and background processes question

[Mike Boreham]

Can I ask people who have contributed Cinebench results to this forum how they handle third party and background processes before testing?

My own experience is that I can get quite big variations by turning off background apps. I tend to fluctuate between keeping my machine "lean and mean" and "loading it up" with with utilities and third party productivity apps. Currently I am at a peak of being "loaded up" and ran Cinebench on my 2016 M5 and was appalled to get 173. Last year it was typically 230 but I think squeezed it up to 240 I think, somewhere near other published results.

I booted into safe mode and re-ran Cinebench and got 230. Then I uninstalled some non-essential utilities and apps and booted normally and got 220.

So it seems there quite a lot of scope for variability due to other processes, and yet many of the results from different machines look reasonably consistent. So what is standard/good practice?

Thanks

 

[EugW]

Yes, when I ran my tests, I turned off anti-virus and other apps that sit in my menu bar that are constantly running, although outside of anti-virus, most of them didn't seem to make much difference. I only ran the tests after a fresh boot though, before I had a chance to run a bunch of other applications. I didn't bother booting into safe mode.

My 2017 m3 gets 260-265 with a regular fresh bootup and anti-virus shut off.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Yes, when I ran my tests, I turned off anti-virus and other apps that sit in my menu bar that are constantly running, although outside of anti-virus, most of them didn't seem to make much difference. I only ran the tests after a fresh boot though, before I had a chance to run a bunch of other applications. I didn't bother booting into safe mode.

My 2017 m3 gets 260-265 with a regular fresh bootup and anti-virus shut off.

Thanks. I wonder why my 2016 M5 plummeted to 173. I should have been a bit more scientific isolating the cause. It is giving 235 pretty consistently now.

There is a fresh batch of 2017 i5 and i7 in the Apple UK refurb section this week, including 16GB RAM. Tempting!