Cinebench 2026 out and ready to hammer CPUs and graphics cards six times as hard — updated benchmark includes an SMT core test

Maxon has released Cinebench 2026, a more demanding benchmark that uses the latest Redshift engine to stress test CPUs and GPUs. The updated benchmark is six times harsher on multi-threaded tests and includes a new SMT core test to evaluate chip performance. The list of supported hardware now includes the latest AMD and Nvidia consumer cards, Apple's M4 and M5 chips, and Windows-on-Arm versions. Users will need GPUs with 8GB or more of VRAM for testing, and Apple M-series machines require 16GB for GPU tests. Cinebench 2026 is available for Windows 10, Windows 11, and macOS 14.7 or above.