Futuremark, the benchmarking company formerly known as MadOnion.com, has announced that it has added a stress-test feature to its 3DMark software.
While Futuremark's 3DMark software is commonly used to gauge a system's performance on gaming-type workloads, it is less well suited to completely maxing out a system's GPU and CPU - a task for which alternative packages such as Furmark and Prime95 work well. In its latest update to the software though, Futuremark has addressed this need by adding a stress test functionality specifically designed to put maximum strain on the host system.
Available in the software's Advanced and Professional Editions, the stress test uses the same Sky Diver or Fire Strike workloads as the benchmarking feature but with tweaks: rather than pausing for loading screens as settings are adjusted, the benchmark runs in a prolonged loop - 20 times over 10 minutes for the Advanced Edition, or up to 5,000 times for the Professional Edition - with no cessation of effort.
Once the run is complete - and assuming nothing crashed or melted, revealing a flaw in the host machine - a graph is provided displaying temperature and frame rate. The frame rate must be 97 percent stable, the company has declared, for a system to get a passing grade; should the frame rate vary more than this, due to thermal throttling or other issues, a failing grade will be displayed.
