How to Create a Portable Version of Cinebench R20
I was thrilled when I read about the launch of Cinebench R20 last week. This is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever said, but it’s still true. This free benchmarking app is great for testing your PC if you’re wondering how fast it runs (and how well it can work with other systems).
However, the previous version of Cinebench (R15) came with a handy OpenGL benchmark that you could also use to map the GPU to your system. This is missing from the R20, which is mainly aimed at making your CPU suffer. The scores between the two applications are not comparable as they use different workloads to test your system.
When I recently ran both applications on my system, my system definitely took up space in Cinebench R20 versus R15, but that’s easy to explain. The older Cinebench R15 compared my CPU to older CPUs and my system wasn’t all that bad back then. The new version, however, has an extended list to draw from – as I noticed when the new AMD Threadripper chips put my aging Intel Core i7-4790K processor to shame.
And while I have yet to find a giant public database of Cinebench R20 user ratings – like this one handy for Cinebench R15 – there are plenty of topics on the forum that you can jump into if you want to compare your system’s performance to others (including similar configured systems).
Building a portable version of Cinebench
The only downside to Cinebench R20 is that its developer, Maxon, decided to offer the app through the Microsoft and Apple app stores. While this is not the biggest problem, it does mean that you cannot simply download the executable or .ZIP file and install the application yourself; you need to go through the app store, which may not be the way you like (or don’t want to) receive your apps.
It doesn’t take long for others to hack together the portable version of Cinebench R20, and it doesn’t take long after that for Cinebench to send legal threats to those offering downloads. While you should follow in their footsteps and not list the portable version you created for public use, there is nothing stopping you from making it for yourself and using it on your system.
I focus on the Windows version of this app because I suspect that most Mac users don’t mind the Apple App Store in much the same way that Windows users prefer alternatives to Microsoft’s offerings. And, yes, you will need to download it from the Microsoft Store in order to create a portable version (unless you use a site like Adguard to get the link), which makes crawling the Microsoft Store meaningless, but at least you should be able to use its portable version on other systems in the future.
Once you’ve downloaded the app, launch it and open the Windows Task Manager. Find the Cinebench list, but don’t right click on it. If you do this, most of the options will be grayed out. Instead, left-click the arrow to the left of the list, and will be one more mention of the Cinebench, located beneath the first. Right-click and select Open File Location.
You will now find yourself in the “bin” folder, located inside a folder with an absurdly long name (which starts with “MAXON …”). Right-click the “bin” folder in the left sidebar, select “copy” and paste the folder to a different location on your computer. You now have a portable version of the application that you can install on any Windows system you want. I tested it by uninstalling the Windows version of the Cinebench R20 application and running the Cinebench executable from the bin folder I just copied. It worked great.