These Pro Audio CPU Benchmarks & Comparisons will help give you an idea of how a CPU will perform under certain workflows and stress tests.

Pro audio CPU Benchmarks allow PCAudioLabs to discern how a CPU will perform under certain operational settings for pro audio and video production. It does not, strictly speaking, convey the full performance of a CPU or a completely built and configured pro audio PC. It is one part of a greater whole.

Generally speaking, a CPU with a higher clock speed will lead to better performance at lower buffer settings, which should lead to lower latency performance. This, however, is also dependent on audio hardware, and the overall configuration of a system, including the software being used.

Our Benchmarking process makes use of DAWbench test sessions, as well as testing under Maxon Cinebench, and Passmark Performance Test. We generally test using a PreSonus Studio 192 USB 3.0 and PreSonus Audiobox 44VSL audio interfaces, in Cubase Pro.

We test using two methods. First, the number of Reaxcomp Multiband Compressors we can instantiate on a 48 track session at 44.1kHz and 96kHz before CPU overload/crackling at various buffer sizes (typically 64 samples - 512 samples) -- this is an Audio streaming test. This allows us to test round-trip latency on our configurations.

The second test utilizes Virtual Instrument Polyphony testing. We open a test session, loaded with Native Instruments Kontakt instances and instruments, and then unmute tracks, increasing the load on the CPU, instantiating 20 notes of Polyphony until the CPU overloads.

Please note that these tests are baselines only. They do not strictly mean that your PC will perform the same. You will be using a mix of various plugins, tracks, and other factors, all of which can change the results on your pro audio PC.

We will update our findings as new CPUs are released and tested.

This page was updated on August 29th 2022.  

These test templates can be found at DAWbench.com.

If you'd like to download these results in PDF, you may do so at the following links:

PCAudioLabs Pro Audio CPU Benchmarks - 2022

PCAudioLabs Pro Audio Virtual Instrument Benchmarks - 2022

Download Adobe Acrobat here.