Items tagged with Benchmarking
UL Benchmarks (formerly known as Futuremark) has added a new Variable Rate Shading (VRS) test to its popular 3DMark benchmarking suite, and it is now available to the public. The new test taps into a feature of Microsoft's DirectX 12 API that allows developers to improve performance by selectively reducing the level of detail in parts of a frame. The idea behind VRS is to lessen the workload on a GPU and push higher framerates, without adversely affecting the overall image quality of a scene as it is perceived by the viewer. In theory, the selective reduction of detail in any given frame will occur where it will not be noticed much, if at all. "By using VRS to lower the shading rate for parts...
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Intel and its hired benchmarking gun, Principled Technologies, have come under fire for the benchmarking methodology used to validate the Core i9-9900K as the "world's fastest gaming processor." At the heart of the issue is the latter's decision to enable Game Mode on AMD's Ryzen 7 2700X, resulting in a performance disparity upwards of 50 percent compared to the Core i9-9900K. Principled Technologies has since retested the Ryzen 7 2700X in Creator Mode, and while the new data still has the Core i9-9900K coming out ahead, the disparity isn't nearly as dramatic. As you might already know, the Core i9-9900K is Intel's flagship CPU in its recently announced 9th generation Core processor family, and...
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Futuremark has just updated its 3DMark benchmark for Android, introducing a couple of new features and preparations for beefier updates in the future. At the forefront is a new feature for recommending a device; once a benchmark run is complete, you can simply click on "Recommend". While Futuremark already ranks devices based on performance, this feature should prove useful when you'd actually recommend that very device to someone else - after all, just because a device performs well doesn't mean it's equally excellent in other areas. With this update, Futuremark is hinting that more tests are going to be added down the road, so to prepare for that, the benchmark has become modular. When you...
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The benchmarking world is a highly fluid one, with comparisons changing by the month and cutting-edge innovations rendering once-reliable tests as archaic. The third-party world usually doesn't have much trouble keeping pace, but today, an interesting announcement shows that OEMs themselves are watching the numbers... perhaps even more than we'd envisioned. Broadcom, Huawei, OPPO, Samsung Electronics and Spreadtrum today announced the formation of MobileBench, a new industry consortium formed to provide more effective hardware and system-level performance assessment of mobile devices. The consortium will "initially focus on addressing the need of developers to better understand every element...
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Geekbench 3, the latest version of the multi-platform benchmarking tool and the first major upgrade in six years, is now available to download, developer Primate Labs announced. It includes 15 new benchmark tests designed to mimic real-world processor intensive tasks. A variety of tasks are included, such as encryption, image processing, signal processing, and physics simulation. Primate Labs also brought over a dozen tests from Geekbench 2, though each one has been completely rewritten for the latest release. According to Primate Labs, the new versions offer a better representation of real-world applications and usage scenarios. Also new is the scoring system. Users will receive separate single-core...
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A few weeks ago, the analyst company ABI Research published a report claiming that Intel's new CloverTrail+ platform (dual-core Medfield) for smartphones was significantly faster and more power efficient than anything ARM's various partners were shipping. If you follow the smartphone market, that was a very surprising claim. Medfield was a decent midrange platform when it launched in 2012, but Intel made it clear that it's goal for Medfield was to compete with other platforms in its division -- not seize the performance crown outright. The dual-core / quad-thread CloverTrail+ has improved on Medfield's performance, but it's still based on 2008-era microprocessor technology. Qualcomm, Samsung,...
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You may have noticed that we include the results of several Futuremark benchmarks in our reviews, which offer consistent results and have proven reliable over the years. That includes 3DMark 11, and with the latest update -- 3DMark 11 version 1.0.4 -- it's now fully compatible with Windows 8, Futuremark says.. In addition to supporting Microsoft's touchtastic operating system, the latest 3DMark 11 build also addresses a few uncommon bugs, all without rendering your previous scores obsolete. Futuremark says you can compare scores from version 1.0.4 with the previous version. In related news, Futuremark today announced that PCMark 7 has been updated to version 1.4.0, making it too fully compatible...
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The wait has been long, but Futuremark has finally announced a release date for its latest 3DMark benchmark: February 4th. Unlike previous 3DMarks, this one foregoes a suffix - it's not "3DMark 13", but simply "3DMark". This simplification might be due to the fact that for the first time, this software isn't exclusive to Windows. Instead, Futuremark will be offering the exact same suite for Windows RT, Android and iOS - the release for these versions will come after the Windows one, however. We've already seen quite a bit revealed about Futuremark's latest benchmark up to this point, so instead of sending along even more in-benchmark screenshots, the company has given us a preview of...
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The release of the next 3DMark is right around the corner, and to help tide us over Futuremark has released a new trailer called "Fire Strike" that shows off some pretty DirectX 11 effects - aka: effects we hope to actually see implemented in our future games. If you can believe it, this trailer is even shorter than the last one, with the demo portion itself running for just about 25 seconds. It's called "Fire Strike" but it could have easily been called "Fire vs. Ice" since that's that battle we're witnessing. What do you guys think? To quote Futuremark, this trailer features the use of "tessellation, dynamic particle illumination and shadowing, smoke simulation using grid-based fluid dynamics,...
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We're plenty familiar with Futuremark's assortment of benchmarks, as we should be since we feature 3DMark and PCMark in several of our reviews. They're great tools for assessing performance on the Windows platform, but what about the growing number of Android devices? Well, Futuremark's going to cover those, too. The Finish software company is working on a version of 3DMark specifically for Android-based tablets and smartphones, getting help from some industry heavyweights like Acer, Intel, Qualcomm, and Signtel-Optus, all of which have joined the company's Benchmark Development Program to collaborate and offer input on the new benchmark. "For more than ten years we have worked with the world's...
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Fraps, the popular real-time video capture and benchmarking utility, has been updated for the second time in less than a month, a rare occurrence for a program that typically goes months at a time before receiving new code. The latest version -- Fraps 3.5.1 -- brings just a couple of tweaks to the table, including: Added support for exFAT drives writing larger than 4 gigabytes Fixed crash when large custom resolutions used in game There was a bigger update released in late April, which added support for large AVI movie files above 4GB on NTFS drives and fixed a handful of issues. It should also be noted that as of Fraps 3.5.0, new system requirements include a CPU with SSE2 (Pentium 4 and above)...
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Beepa's handy-dandy real-time video capture and benchmarking program known as Fraps has just been updated to version 3.5.0. Updates to Fraps are few and far between; the last time the folks at Beepa tweaked their popular utility was six months ago in October 2011. First and foremost, there are new system requirements to run the latest version of Fraps, but don't fret, they're nothing strenuous. As long as you own a CPU with SSE2 (Pentium 4 and above) and a Windows OS that isn't older than XP, you're good to go (note that Windows 2000 is no longer supported). For those of you rocking an old-school system with Windows 2000 and/or a non-SSE2 processor, you can still download the previous version...
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Motherboard makers have long gone after the enthusiast crowd by implementing overclocking friendly features into their products, and these days companies get just as excited about benchmarking and OCing world records as end users do. Take MSI, for example, which is happy as can be that its X79A-GD65 (8D) was part of an overclocked system that set an official world record for the Physics portion of Futuremark's 3DMark 11 benchmark. Singapore overclocker "Spyboy48" broke the record during an overclocking contest sponsored by MSI, Kingston, Enermax, and Cougar. "The new record score, 19090, set with an Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor and MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) motherboard is a great achievement...
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Hardcore PC enthusiasts who try to squeeze every possible MHz out of their systems by overclocking and swapping out core system components need to have access to tools that deliver precise information about those components--especially the respective speeds those components are running at. Two such tools that have long-assisted overclockers and benchmarkers are CPU-Z and GPU-Z--both are free applications that run on Windows machines. CPU-Z gathers information about your system's CPU, motherboad, and memory. GPU-Z gathers information about your system's video cards and GPUs.The problem is, with new hardware coming out all the time, it can prove difficult keeping the software in step with hardware...
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Good afternoon guys and gals. Before your eyes fall to the reviews below, make sure to check out Chris's review of the Soltek SL-K890Pro-939 Motherboard. Also, Letter #144 from Dan's Data makes for some good reading. Enjoy the rest of the news... [H]ard|OCP $500 Q2-05 Upgrade Guide @ HardOCP "This a system that will play today's games at acceptable frame rates, run some of the most demanding office applications, and offer a bit of upgradeability when the next $500 roles around." Evercool HPC-925 Ice-Man Heatpipe Cooler Review @ 3DXtreme "Today 3DXtreme has the pleasure of reviewing a new cooler offering from Evercool, the HPC-925 Ice-Man. This cooler uses heatpipe technology to...
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Here we go again, starting up your day with a taste of what the hardware world has to offer. This morning we've got the spectrum covered from motherboards to power supplies and water cooling. Top that of with some Doom3 benchmarking and the fun real gets going! So let's jump in shall we? ECS PF1 Deluxe Photon Motherboard review @ Tweaktown: "We are taking a little flash-back today as we look at the year old ECS PF1 Deluxe Photon Motherboard. We've seen attempts in the past from ECS to make it big in leagues besides OEM and watched them fail. How does the this ECS Springdale motherboard fair against some of the biggest names in the enthusiast motherboard business?...
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