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So many benchmarks now have been all wrapped up into neat little apps or games that literally anyone, including, terrifyingly — me! — can just download, run once and done. They spit out numbers, sometimes highly relative and abstract, with almost zero time and effort, all pretty for posting. But they don’t really tell you how to run them, what the numbers actually mean, or give you any of the context needed to interpret them. They’ve become pop culture, or what I’ve been calling Benchmark LARP, live action roll-play. Especially when compared to say… what outlets like AnandTech and a few others still manage to produce, with incredible talent, and a ton of high-order-bit work and effort.

Because the ugly truth is, while running benchmarking might be easier than ever, understanding them is significantly more complex.

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