Ashes of the Singularity

Publisher: Stardock


We use the built-in benchmark of Ashes of the Singularity, which runs through an automatic play-through scene in the game. We've selected the CPU-intensive benchmark option and used 'High' settings with MSAA disabled, all of which are located in the game's video options and benchmark menus. On startup, we also select the DirectX 12 version, which is only available to use in Windows 10. We use a 30-second Fraps benchmark to obtain the minimum and average frame rate during the benchmark, beginning at the start.

Unigine Valley 1.0

Publisher: Unigine


Unigine's free Valley 1.0 benchmarking tool works well as a graphics benchmark as it is GPU-limited and is thus incredibly taxing on the GPU whilst placing the CPU under very little stress. Unigine's scoring system is effectively linear: A card with 2,000 points is considered twice as fast as one with 1,000 points, and half as fast as one with 4,000 points. As such, you can easily replicate and run the test on your own system to gauge roughly how big a difference an upgrade would likely make for you.

3DMark Time Spy

Publisher: Futuremark


3DMark recently added Time Spy, a DirectX 12 benchmark that runs at 1440p. It is designed to properly utilise the advantages of the DirectX 12 API. The benchmark is available for free, but you'll need to pay to change any of the settings, including the resolution. Nonetheless, it still serves as a useful at-a-glance comparison of performance in this increasingly important API.