12-core AMD Strix Point Zen 5 engineering sample shows up in early Blender benchmarks, matches 8-core 7700X in performance

Jeff Butts
·2 min read
AMD Strix Point Blender benchmark appears.
AMD Strix Point Blender benchmark appears.

A Blender benchmark for an alleged AMD Strix Point CPU engineering sample has surfaced. The results aren't breathtaking, but many unknown factors make it hard to say if the score reflects the chip's true capabilities.

The benchmark was spotted by @9550Pro (HXL) and posted to X (formerly Twitter). HXL suggests the CPU is a Zen 5 Strix Point engineering sample with four performance and eight efficiency cores. Strix Point is the codename for AMD's upcoming Zen 5-based Ryzen mobile processors, which will succeed Zen 4 processors like the Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U.

In the Blender benchmark, the CPU demonstrated a median score of just 270.92. This is slightly better than the 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, which scored 269.02. The engineering sample also outperformed the Ryzen 9 3900X 12-core processor (267.89) and Intel Core i7-13700HX (255.58), to name just two examples.

On the other hand, the AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT 12-core processor outperformed the Strix Point engineering sample. However, that is a desktop CPU, not a low-power mobile processor.

In a possibly more apples-to-apples comparison, the Ryzen 7 Pro 7840U scored 216.09 on the Blender benchmark.

Blender’s benchmarks don’t mention power, an important factor in CPU performance. If this Strix Point sample shows a 65W Zen 5 CPU faring better than a 105W Zen 4 CPU, the results are encouraging.

We've recently spotted other benchmarks, including Geekbench 6 results, that were underwhelming at first glance.

Blender benchmarks scale almost perfectly with more cores and higher clock speeds. So, if this is, in fact, a 12-core Zen 5-based mobile CPU, it’s scoring right about where we’d expect it to.

The unknown factors mean we have to take these results with a grain of salt. We don’t really know the CPU configuration, and we have no idea how much power is supplied to the CPU. None of that is really important, though, if you’re interested in seeing the progress (in the way of benchmarks) of the new processor family in the interim before we can get our hands on the chips ourselves.