However, there are a few things you’re going to want to do before you start benchmarking your PC: You pretty much just install it, open it, and let it run. Now, actually running a benchmark application is pretty straightforward. The only time you should need to run individual benchmarks on non-CPU/GPU components is if you’re a reviewer or journalist, but for consumers, this isn’t necessary. Last but not least, full system benchmarks! It usually isn’t worth running individual-component benchmarks for components that aren’t the CPU or GPU.Īnyway, with full system benchmarks, you can get easy, accurate numbers on your memory and storage drives as well. If there are any instabilities or issues with your GPU, these benchmarks should expose them while also giving you an idea of your performance. The GPU is going to be doing most of the work in your games and many of these benchmarking applications. Next up is the GPU, which will have the most impact on your gaming performance… unless it’s being bottlenecked by other components or the game is CPU-bound instead of GPU-bound. If your PC is a body, think of your CPU as its brain- integral, irreplaceable, and more important than any other part of the whole. Additionally, CPU performance pertains to your entire system, not just games or video, as the GPU does.

While many games out there are primarily GPU-dependent, you still need to make sure that your CPU is up to par before buying the latest games. It’s called the Central Processing Unit for a reason, after all. What components should I benchmark? Processor (CPU)įirst and foremost, you should benchmark your CPU. If you want to get an idea of how your PC and its components will do in general, though, keep reading. If you want to see how your PC will do for a specific game or application, we recommend checking out our How To Check If My PC Will Run This Game article. Synthetic benchmarks, however, won’t reflect these outlier scenarios and will focus instead on establishing the standard level of performance that you can expect from your system. With gaming benchmarks, some games may run better on otherwise-equal Nvidia cards versus AMD cards, for instance. Unlike gaming benchmarks, synthetic benchmarks are meant to serve as a standard point of reference, regardless of the hardware you’re running. Synthetic benchmarks are basically computer performance tests. Instead, we’re talking primarily about… Synthetic Benchmarks You may also be inclined to run these yourself, but these aren’t the type of benchmarks we’re covering in this article. You’ll see these frequently in CPU and GPU reviews, as well as gaming PC reviews and even individual game reviews. While this isn’t a comprehensive list, you can find a lot of games with built-in benchmarks at XS Reviews. Some modern games even have built-in benchmarks for players to run. This means running a game through a set scenario, usually more than once, to find an average level of performance in that game, on that hardware, with those particular settings. After all, you can have the best synthetic benchmarks in the world, but if things don’t actually work when the game is running, then what’s the point? Perhaps the most important benchmark you’ll ever get is a real-world gaming benchmark. To get a benchmark, people usually run games (gaming benchmarks) or specialized applications (synthetic benchmarks) to extract performance numbers, allowing individual components or full systems to be pitted against one another. In this context, benchmarks are used to assess and compare performance between your system and the millions of others out there.

If you aren’t sure what a benchmark is exactly, that’s okay, a lot of people don’t. You’ll know how to benchmark your system and then some by the time we’re done. If you’re here to learn how to benchmark your PC, you’re in the right place. This will include a brief explanation of what benchmarks even are, the difference between gaming and synthetic benchmarks, what components you should be benchmarking in your system, and our recommended tools for benchmarking said components. Today, we’re going to tell you all you need to know about benchmarking your gaming PC.

Pc benchmark test