40-second startup delay appears when running Geekbench 6.3 with Intel's Binary Optimization Tool (BOT) enabled on the first run, vanishing for subsequent executions. BOT boosts Geekbench 6.3 scores by 5.5% in both single-core and multi-core tests compared to disabled BOT. However, Geekbench 6.7 shows minimal gains, with only a 0.9% improvement in multi-core scores.

Our investigation reveals BOT performs a checksum check during startup, hinting it identifies known binaries for optimization. 14% reduction in total instructions and a 1366% increase in vector instructions during the HDR workload highlight BOT's aggressive vectorization, far exceeding Intel's disclosed code-reordering techniques. This transforms benchmark results, making Intel processors appear faster than they perform in real-world scenarios where BOT is unsupported. Geekbench 6.7 will include detection flags to warn users of BOT's impact.