Benchmarks like 7Zip compression/decompression, LAME encoding, Blackmagic RAW video encoding, Cinebench, x265 encoding, Blender encoding, Y Cruncher, and any of the built-in video game benchmarks make much more sense than Geekbench.
I don't think so. First, Geekbench already shows sub scores for different types of applications.[0] Second, nearly no one uses CPU rendering for Cinebench and Blender. They're mostly GPU work. Video encoding/decoding work is mostly done by the media engine or GPU on Apple Silicon. Third, CPU benchmarks tend to correlate. If a CPU is faster in one thing, it's more likely to be faster in another. Therefore, a comprehensive score like what Geekbench and SPEC provide is valuable.
Geekbench is extremely good at showing general CPU performance, especially ST. It's also highly correlated with SPEC at nearly 1:1 in terms of scores as shown by Nuvia before they were purchased by Qualcomm.[1]
While I definitely agree about video decoding, encoding still is a valuable measure.
With inter-frame delivery codecs the hw encoder always focuses on speed, with a lean towards file size as well. It makes sense for most consumer use cases. 15x faster perhaps sure, but you might end up with a file almost 10x larger while still lower quality than a decent CPU encoding.
Also the more off the beaten path of rec709 and rec2020 you go the less certain you can be that the hw encoder supports things.
Geekbench is extremely good at showing general CPU performance, especially ST. It's also highly correlated with SPEC at nearly 1:1 in terms of scores as shown by Nuvia before they were purchased by Qualcomm.[1]
[0]https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/18801240 scroll down
[1]https://medium.com/silicon-reimagined/performance-delivered-...