Benchmarks & torture tests

[Mike_J_Smith]

What benchmarks do you guys use for testing general PC performance and for highlighting bottlenecks?

I guess partly just for kicks but also I'm interested in whether it's worthwhile upgrading my CPU next year (Intel i7 8700) and if so what upgrade is going to give a useful upgrade.

Also, torture tests for stability - I've used P95 for years; is there anything else I should consider?

 

[pc-guy]

What bottle neck are you looking for?

What are you benching for?

Generally people don’t buy PC just to run bench marks. They usually use it to do work/browsing/shopping/content creation/gaming etc.

all of that depend on what you use it for. Also bottlenecks, what does it matter? You buy the best stuff that you can afford.

for stress testing - not only for the case of stability but also indication of cooling. For CPU - AIDA64, OCCT, LINPaK, GPU - 3D mark, furmark; got SSD - Diskmark and ATTO; ram - memtest86; overall system stability - Aida64

 

[Mike_J_Smith]

What bottle neck are you looking for?

What are you benching for?

Generally people don’t buy PC just to run bench marks. They usually use it to do work/browsing/shopping/content creation/gaming etc.

all of that depend on what you use it for. Also bottlenecks, what does it matter? You buy the best stuff that you can afford.

for stress testing - not only for the case of stability but also indication of cooling. For CPU - AIDA64, OCCT, LINPaK, GPU - 3D mark, furmark; got SSD - Diskmark and ATTO; ram - memtest86; overall system stability - Aida64

Thanks. Benchmarking partly out of interest, partly just for fun but also to see if the system is performing as expected and, in particular, if the cpu is holding back the system. The bottleneck matters because if the CPU isn’t holding me back then I may put off upgrading. I like buying stuff so probably won’t put it off!

I built the computer for general use, but also photo editing. Since then I’ve stopped photo editing so much, started doing some 3d modelling and now back into gaming. My priority is gaming.

 

[pc-guy]

Depend on what res you game, what your monitor is or what you want to buy. And also what games you play. All has an impact.

1080p you will see CPU bottle necks but in many titles you won’t get less than 60fps on 1% low. So you need to see how the GPU and CPU performs in the titles you want to play. Average FPS at 1080 will likely to be high but 1% low is probably what you care about.

1440p in most games still GPU bound, only the 3080, 3090, 6800XT etc are showing CPU bound situation.

4K nothing is CPU bound. All GPU power.

of course all of the above is based on traditional rasterisation. When you through RT into the mix then everything is basically GPU bound.

 

[Mike_J_Smith]

Depend on what res you game, what your monitor is or what you want to buy. And also what games you play. All has an impact.

1080p you will see CPU bottle necks but in many titles you won’t get less than 60fps on 1% low. So you need to see how the GPU and CPU performs in the titles you want to play. Average FPS at 1080 will likely to be high but 1% low is probably what you care about.

1440p in most games still GPU bound, only the 3080, 3090, 6800XT etc are showing CPU bound situation.

4K nothing is CPU bound. All GPU power.

of course all of the above is based on traditional rasterisation. When you through RT into the mix then everything is basically GPU bound.

OK thanks for that. I'm on 1440p and don't expect to move to 4k any time soon. It's just for info really.

 

[Mike_J_Smith]

Sorry, what do you mean by "1% low"?

 

[pc-guy]

Sorry, what do you mean by "1% low"?

When you play games, there is averag frame rate which is a measurement of the frames per second over a period of time. Then there is the 1% low some times 0.1% low metric. That’s when the games enter demanding area or hits lots of players then it starts to not keeping up the frames.

a game doesn’t output consistent frames every second, it goes up and down depend on how demanding the scene is.

the 1% low metric is used to determine how stuttering the game will feel when you hits those demanding areas. Ideally you want that to be nice and high so it is smooth and with your GSync or Freesync monitors then you are screen tear free and smooth as butter also.

 

[Mike_J_Smith]

When you play games, there is averag frame rate which is a measurement of the frames per second over a period of time. Then there is the 1% low some times 0.1% low metric. That’s when the games enter demanding area or hits lots of players then it starts to not keeping up the frames.

a game doesn’t output consistent frames every second, it goes up and down depend on how demanding the scene is.

the 1% low metric is used to determine how stuttering the game will feel when you hits those demanding areas. Ideally you want that to be nice and high so it is smooth and with your GSync or Freesync monitors then you are screen tear free and smooth as butter also.

gotcha, thanks