Video cards are kind of hardware that is created for sheer purpose of showing off. No other computer component gets more powerful at that unreasonable pace and manages to convince users it is still worth paying for. :)
While running latest game at unnecessarily high settings is fun enough, sometimes you need hard numbers to validate your purchase. FurMark is simple and fun video card benchmark, that also can (with help of GPU-Z) test system stability.
GPU-Z info and monitor tool
App is portable and straightforward utility that displays technical info about your video card.
On top of providing those obscure details it will also detect (if possible) dynamic video card parameters (like temperature) and FurMark will automagically make use of those, as long as GPU-Z is running.
Home http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
Download http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1665/TechPowerUp_GPU-Z_v0.3.6.html
FurMark benchmark
Do you remember last time you had played game packed full of cool fluffy/furry creatures in awesome 3D ? Probably not, because rendering fur is insanely complex operation.
FurMark is all about that, only test it does (and needs) is OpenGL rendering round thingy, covered by thick fur. There are two modes:
- stability test that will run continuously (as usual I warn to be careful and not burn your hardware);
- benchmark that runs for specified number of seconds or frames rendered to get that much desired score number and optionally submit to online database.
Window/fullscreen resolution can be customized from interface or from command line (see Run-Multiple-Tests.bat example in program directory) to run tests in bulk.
furmark_test
Home http://www.ozone3d.net/benchmarks/fur/
Download http://www.geeks3d.com/20090703/furmark-1-7-0-the-bad-boy-of-graphics-cards-utilities-is-back/
Overall
While FurMark is hardly comprehensive, approach to choose adequately complex task and load hardware to the max rarely fails. Results are easy to interpret and process looks cool – what more is needed? :)
Vijay #