We run benchmarks at Maximum PC because we have to; there’s no other way to determine the minute differences between systems without a repeatable standard of comparison. But you don’t have to be a reviewer to run a benchmark; in fact, regular benchmarking can give you valuable insight into the status of your system. For example, benchmarks are the best way to decipher whether the various performance-enhancing applications you’re running on your PC actually do anything or whether that latest batch of drivers hurt your gaming performance more than it helped.

The Maximum PC suite of benchmarks costs upwards of $1,000—a bit out of the price range of users who just want to see if their machines are up to snuff. But there are cheaper (and by that we mean free!) alternatives; we’ll show you how you can use them to test your rig in the comfort of your own home.

Time: 22 hours

What You Need

• A PC
• Cinebench
  www.maxon.net
• 3DMark05
  www.futuremark.com
• Call of Juarez DirectX 10 Demo
  http://tinyurl.com/2g6dhr
• HD Tach
  www.simplisoftware.com
• Cosbi OpenSourceMark
  www.sourceforge.net/projects/opensourcemark
• Prime95
  www.mersenne.org
• Patience

Score Your CPU

We scoured the Internet and racked our brains to find the most appropriate (and most free) CPU test for your machine. And trust us, it wasn’t easy. Whittling down the list of options to just those that are free was difficult enough—there’s not much out there that will cost you absolutely nothing.

After picking through that small pile of programs, we discovered an important corollary that bears repeating: Just because a program claims to be a CPU test doesn’t necessarily mean the score it generates is a proper reflection of your CPU’s performance, particularly if you’re running a multicore machine. (Single-core users have a bit more leeway with their CPU benchmark choices, as anything that taxes the CPU is going to hit your one, lonely core.) The surest way to test a benchmark’s effectiveness is to pull up the Windows task manager while running a given CPU analyzer. A true CPU test will completely maximize the usage of all your cores.

Cinebench’s built-in database keeps track of all of your benchmark runs. Label everything correctly so you don’t forget what changes you’re testing!

Grab Cinebench and you’ll be pleasantly delighted by its absurd ease of use and applicable testing environment. The program runs on everything from single-core to 16-core machines. It’s a wonderfully future-proof little benchmark that gives you an overall performance score based on your computer’s ability to render a 3D image in as little time as possible. You can even record your results to a built-in database, a helpful way to keep track of your scores when modifying your rig. If you’re suffering any CPU performance loss as a result of your tweaking, Cinebench will let you know.

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Software, graphics, ram, benchmark, how_to, benchmarking, cpu test, prime 95, hd tach, from the magazine

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