Friday, June 17th 2016
Futuremark Releases 3DMark Stress Tests
Futuremark released a new stress-test mode for the popular 3DMark suite, which lets you test the stability of your machine, after all the overclock/volt wizardry is done. What this mode does is runs a continuous 3D scene from the bench of your choice ("Fire Strike" (standard, Extreme, and Ultra,) and "Skydiver"), in a continuous rendering, without stopping for any loading screens or other breaks. This is different from the "loop" custom test setting, which runs each test over and over again, with pauses to reload the scene.
In the free edition, you can stress for up to 10 minutes. The Professional Edition key lets you scorch your hardware for up to 40 hours. Stressing your hardware is not all that this mode does, there's also a stability-test component, which checks for frame-rate stability through the defined cycles of your stress. The app would flag your hardware as "passed" only if it can achieve a frame-rate stability of at least 97% (it should tell you if your overclock is not sustainable as it runs into a thermal throttle). Simply update your 3DMark installation to the latest version, to use this feature.
In the free edition, you can stress for up to 10 minutes. The Professional Edition key lets you scorch your hardware for up to 40 hours. Stressing your hardware is not all that this mode does, there's also a stability-test component, which checks for frame-rate stability through the defined cycles of your stress. The app would flag your hardware as "passed" only if it can achieve a frame-rate stability of at least 97% (it should tell you if your overclock is not sustainable as it runs into a thermal throttle). Simply update your 3DMark installation to the latest version, to use this feature.