That new game is not running smoothly, your video editor is faltering and your PC sometimes just reboots – your computer is apparently reaching its limits. Difficult, because is it because of the memory, the processor, the disk or the graphics card? Fortunately, there are tools that accurately measure and benchmark the performance of your system and its various components so that you choose the right solution, these are the best benchmark tools.
When your system is sulking or slowing down noticeably, it is often not clear exactly what caused it. The performance of your PC is simply a complex interplay of software and various hardware components. Imagine, for example, that you put more memory in your PC or buy a new graphics card and then it does not help. In order to find the right solution, it is therefore useful to accurately measure the performance of various system components and possibly also compare them with other systems.
In this article you will discover a series of tools with which you can perform the necessary measurements and benchmarks. In benchmarks, there is a distinction between real world (or real time) benchmarkers and synthetic (or artificial) benchmarkers. The first uses existing applications to map performance, while the second mimics applications and calculates the performance score based on that. Both are discussed here. But before we dive into the external tools, let’s take a look at what Windows already has on board.
01 Performance meter
Windows itself has a few tools that come close to what benchmarkers and burn-in tests do. For example the Memory Check (press Windows key + R and enter mdsched off), the Source Control (press Ctrl + Shift + Esc, go to the tab Performance and click Open source control) and the Reliability Check (press Windows key + R and enter perfmon / rel from).
We limit ourselves to a built-in performance meter. Make sure you are logged in as administrator, press Windows key + R and enter perfmon from. In the left panel you open Control Tools / Performance Monitor. An empty graph appears on the right: indicate here which system part the tool should measure and in the graph. Therefore, press the green plus button, after which you can choose from various computer items in a drop-down menu. Click an arrow next to such an item for even more detailed options. To give you an idea: at Physical disk you will find no less than 21 different measurable parts. click on Add >> the desired parts and confirm with OK.
02 Data collector set
A disadvantage of this is that these performance measurements are just a snapshot (unless you have the time to observe the graph longer). There is also an option to have that performance measured over longer periods. Click on it in the left panel Data collector sets and right click Defined by the user. Here you choose New / Data collector set. Provide an appropriate name and tick Create manually (advanced) On. Press Next one and select – for our purposes – Performance counter (if you prefer to follow certain registry values, choose here System configuration information). Press again Next one and tick all desired items via Add. Determine a suitable interval for each of these items and confirm with Next one (2x). Choose Start this data collector set now or choose Save and Close if you want to run the set later. Finish with Complete.
You can start or stop the check at any time by selecting your set at Data collector sets / User defined /
You can schedule in at Data collector sets right click your set and Properties select. You add the desired times on the tab Scheme and on the tab Stop condition indicate under what conditions you want the check to stop automatically.
03 System: UBM
A versatile benchmarker that measures the performance of various system components is UserBenchMark (UBM). surf to www.userbenchmark.com to download the tool. As soon as you start the portable program, you will see which components are benchmarked: CPU, GPU, memory, hard drives and USB storage media. You start it via the Run-key; leave your PC alone during this two-minute operation. If necessary, you indicate in your firewall that it is reliable software; keep in mind that the test results will be uploaded to the UBM server.
After the test, the report will appear in your browser. UBM makes clear how your system performs with funny classifications of Tree trunk until Speed ​​boat and UFO. The criteria that UBM uses for every type of PC, such as Gaming PC, Desktop and Workstation, do you think here back. For a gaming PC this is for example: 25% GCPU + 50% GPU + 15% SSD + 10% HDD.
04 UBM detailed information
What is the next step if your PC turns out to be a “gaming speed boat”? On the UBM webpage you will find much more useful feedback than that. You get detailed results for all tested system components and insight into what exactly was tested. If you click on a question mark next to such a test item, you will receive the corresponding explanation.
Even lower on the page it becomes especially interesting when you consider replacing a system component with a better one. Click on the section for this Custom PC Builder on Explore upgrades for this PC. At the top left of the page, check the current parts of the tested PC, at the top right the parts of a possible alternative. Say you’re considering replacing the graphics card. Then first open the tab GPU – you will also find the tabs here CPU, SSD, HDD, RAM and MBD (motherboard) back – and then click Change Alternative GPU an alternative model. Here you can choose what you find important: the performance (Bench), the price (Buy) or the combination of price and performance ratio (Value). After the adjustment, read at the top right what such an upgrade will yield. You can also compare your own part and your alternative via the Compare-button. This gives you a very detailed comparison, based on the results of (often many thousands) other UBM users. So very educational.
05 System: Novabench
If you prefer to determine which parts you want to test, try the tool Novabench (available for macOS, Linux and Windows 64 bit). Here you can decide whether you want to upload the test results to the Novabench servers or not. Keep in mind some limitations in the free version: for example, no test scripts or scheduled tests are possible.
Press the button Start Tests then all tests are performed. Through Tests / Individual Test you can choose between CPU, GPU, RAM and Disk. In any case, there is nothing to complain about the waiting time: it is done within two minutes. The result is an overall score and a score for each of the tested components. Not too much depth, but you still get some details, such as the float, integer and hash ops (cpu), speed in MB / s (ram), fps and Gflops (gpu) and the read and write speeds in MB / s (disk).
To compare your own system with previously tested systems, click View Performance Charts and Comparisons. You can register for this, but you can also do it anonymously. Then you have the choice of three buttons: Performance Analysis (with which you compare your own CPU and GPU scores against the average scores of comparable systems), Baseline Comparison (to compare your overall score, your CPU and GPU score with certain types of PCs) and Add to Comparison Chart (so you can directly compare your results with other results).
06 Processor
There are also tools that focus on benchmarking a specific system component, such as CPUID CPU-Z that tests the central processor. First you will see the CPU tab with extensive technical information about your processor – here you will also find tabs with information about your motherboard (Mainboard), memory (Memory and SPD) and gpu (Graphics).
The actual benchmarks can be found on the tab Bench. With Bench CPU start the test and after a few seconds the result will appear in the form of a number, both at Single Thread like with Multi Thread. With the latter you can also set the number of simultaneous threads yourself. What the result actually means becomes clearer when you reach Reference select another cpu from a model list to compare with. You will immediately notice how well your own CPU is farming. You can compare many more CPUs via https://valid.x86.fr/bench/
You will also find the tab Bench another button Stress CPU with which you load your CPU 100%, until you press the button again. You will notice that when you open the tab in the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + Esc) Performance consult and Processor select. For example, such a stress test shows how stable an overclocked CPU actually is.
CYRI?
Do you have a specific game in mind, but are you unsure whether your system can handle it? You can easily test that with Can You Run It. You select the desired game, after which you click Can You Run It clicks. Accept the corresponding download and run the tool to check your hardware specifications. After that, the tool will show you on the website whether your system meets the requirements of the game via the various components such as GPU, CPU, RAM and OS. You will also discover via the link Click here to see which games you can run how many of the approximately 6,000 games in the database meet both the minimum and recommended system requirements.
07 Graphic
One of the more recent synthetic benchmarkers from UNIGINE is Superposition. The basic version is free and you can use it to test how well your system (game) graphics can handle.
Start the tool, click Benchmark and tick Performance on – the option Stress is only available in the paid editions. Bee Preset you can choose from several resolutions, such as 720p, 1080p, 4K and 8K. Bee 1080p there are three options: Medium, High and Extreme. The quality of the shaders and textures is automatically adjusted to your choice. Do you want options like Fullscreen, Resolution, Depth of Field and Motion Blur set yourself, choose at Preset in front of Custom. At the bottom you can see the total and available amount of video ram. Click on the question mark for a detailed manual.
Press on the button RUN to start the benchmark test. You will now see a number of graphic scenes where you can read the fps (frames per second). Afterwards you can save the result and via Compare results online compare with other systems. Also nice: via the button Game you perform comparable benchmarks, but this time it concerns interactive graphics (read: a game) where you can still adjust the settings at any time.
If you only want to know the fps for a specific game, you are better off with Bandicam. It shows you the FPS in real time while you are gaming.
08 Memory
Of course, memory also plays an important role in the performance of your system. The amount of RAM is often decisive, but the speed of the memory also influences, and one ram module is not the other.
A benchmarker who also feels good about the RAM is PassMark Performance Test (30 days free trial). Launch the tool and press the button Memory Mark. It consists of seven tests that you can start all at once or each separately (via Run). Here you will find read and write tests, a latency test and some intensive database operations.
A minute later you will receive the total score and various partial scores. You can then compare the total score with all kinds of other systems or with the performance of identical ram modules.
09 Disc
Disk performance is also important, especially in applications where a lot of data is read or stored, such as database operations. The free tool ATTO Disk Benchmark (available for macOS and Windows after registration) can handle various disk types such as SSDs, HDDs and raid arrays and you can also set all kinds of parameters yourself. This way you can change the block sizes (I / O Size) (up to 64 MB) and the size of your test file (up to 32 GB). You can also set the maximum number of read and write commands you want to execute simultaneously (Queue Depth). You decide whether the benchmarker can use system buffering and caching (via a check mark next to Direct I / O and Bypass Write Cache). You can even set your own test pattern when you also have the option Verify Data turns on.
Afterwards, the transfer rate appears in number of blocks per second (IO / s), both for reading and writing. The makers do not collect any result data themselves, so you cannot compare your scores directly with other systems. But a Google search for, for example, “atto disk benchmark results” may provide you with useful comparison material.
There is still specific for SSDs, also for NVME models AS SSD. Based on a number of synthetic benchmarks, this tool nicely maps the sequential and random read and write performance of your SSD.
