Test Your Graphics Card With These Apps
Everyone’s been talking about the new Nvidia GeForce RTX 20-series graphics cards lately. And while we have yet to really see how they perform in real-world benchmarks – at least beyond those provided by Nvidia itself – you can at least figure out if it’s time to upgrade your aging graphics card by testing its capabilities.
If you are a big gamer, you probably already have a good idea of which settings and games give you a pleasant and smooth gameplay, and which settings slow down your system. (Otherwise, you can easily enable the FPS counter in your game via Steam or Nvidia’s Geforce Experience if it doesn’t already have a built-in FPS counter.)
There are two main reasons for supplementing your gaming experience with benchmarks: to have a repeatable, measurable test of what your card can and cannot, and to be able to compare your results with other configurations to see what performance improvements you can make. obtain, if any, by spending a small fortune on new hardware.
While there are many games that have their own performance testing tools, there are a number of free applications you can use to test your graphics card as well. Here are a few of our favorites:
GFXBench
A free cross-platform graphics test that also allows you to compare your scores against a database of other users? Yes, yes and yes. GFXBench is a must-have addition to your computer toolbox. Even though it requires a decent size download first – 629MB when I ran it – it’s well worth the few minutes you’ll spend waiting. After launching GFXBench, select the API you want to use (OpenGL, DirectX 11, DirectX 12, or Vulkan ) and click the big blue Start All button to start copying. After completing the tests, you can compare your results with those of other systems with similar graphical configurations.
Superposition
The free benchmarks are great and the Unigine benchmarks are consistently recommended by gamers. In fact, you’ve probably heard of the classic Unigine Heaven test. It’s okay, but it increases a little.Superposition is the company’s last test as of 2017 and will definitely put your graphics card to the test. When you’re done testing your system, compare your results to the Unigine Leaderboard to see how and if a few updates can help your system achieve even more frames per second (in the form of a higher Unigine score).
3DMark Basic Edition
If you want a real meaty test for your graphics card, you can shell out some money in 3DMark to get access to its “extended version” of graphics tests. However, if you just want to quickly assess how well your system is performing – which can then be compared to others in whatever web forums or chat rooms you prefer – the ” basic version ” of 3DMark benchmarks is a great free option. However, I wasted a heck of time trying to get the Time Spy free test to work the first time I tried to install it. Uninstalling 3DMark and then reinstalling the app fixed the unknown issue.
Cinebench
Cinebench is a quick and easy OpenGL benchmark for your graphics card that gives you several other benchmarks against which you can compare your results after you’re done. Developer Maxon doesn’t have a huge database that you can use to compare measured FPS with other users, so you’ll need to save your stats and post them on your favorite benchmark web forum to see how you measure. …
UserBenchmark
You are not going to expose your graphics card to a crazy pace with the UserBenchmark benchmark app . However, it is a useful tool to quickly gauge the overall performance of your system, not just the graphics. You can also compare how well your system is performing against similar configured systems and examine the site’s database to see how various updates to your system can improve your performance.