As its name suggests, PerformanceTest is a benchmarking application. It includes several tests to gauge performance and compare it against statistical data gathered about other PCs at world level. The tool has a very nice and intuitive interface, which facilitates accessing each of the tests or run them altogether. However, it should be made more responsive to window resizing. Though it’s practically impossible to get lost, there’s well-structured documentation should you need any help. In any case, this documentation is fundamental for beginners to interpret test results.
As said, a click of a button is all you need to run all tests, which are grouped into six categories: Passmark, CPU, RAM, 2D graphics, 3D graphics and disk speed. However, you don’t need to test everything at a time for you can run all the tests in a given category or even a single one if you prefer. The results are shown as a gauge diagram, placing them in a given percentile in relation to the world average. It also gives information as to other reference baselines, such as minimum and maximum performance figures. In addition, you can submit your results to Passmark servers. Likewise, you can update those references by downloading them.
In general, PerformanceTest can give you accurate data about your computer’s performance. The results of the tests may be crucial in fine tuning your machine in a way that takes most advantage of the available hardware. Compared with other benchmarking tools, PerformanceTest seems to beat them in the number of available tests. Moreover, there’s the advantage of its being easy to use, although understanding what the results mean and taking appropriate measures definitely demand at least basic knowledge by the part of the user.
v9.0.1031 [Apr 2, 2016]
Baseline Search
In advanced search we made the CPU/GPU/Drive model field read only. It can now only be populated using the "Select model" hyperlink and is now an exact search. This change improved some database search times 20 fold (40secs to 2secs) and prevented some timeouts from slow searches.
Added a "clear" hyperlink for CPU/GPU/Drive model
In simple search, we improved the worst case search time 10 fold (20sec to 2sec)
DirectX 12
New message box will alert user that benchmark will not run on release build of Windows 10 (build 10240), requires at least build 10586. Early Win10 releases don't have a full DX12 implmentation.
Fixed a localisation bug with some error messages that were not displaying properly when they contained" characters.
Added better error handling for CPU physics test.
