14 DAY TRIAL // The latest issue of one of the world’s most popular benchmark tools for gaming PCs, 3DMark 2011 is finally up for grabs. This edition is designed to measure the performance of your system’s gaming performance, focusing on DirectX 11.
3DMark 2011 comes in three versions, two paid (Advanced and Professional, priced $19.95 and $995, respectively) and one free of charge (Basic). Currently it is localized for German, Finnish and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified).
As expected, the new version makes use of the features available in DirectX 11, which includes tessellation, multi-threading and compute shaders (a new processing model for GPUs).
The total of six tests provided by the Basic edition evaluates graphics and CPU performance. There are four tests for graphics, one for physics and one that puts the stress on both CPU and GPU.
The first graphics test in 3DMark features light sources with plenty of shadows. In this case post processing is put to the trial for various camera lens effects.
In the second environment tessellation rendering is put to the trial. Depth of field as well as more camera lens effects is added to post processing.
If underwater world was the set for the first two tests, the third setting is in the woods filled with vegetation and architectural pieces. Post processing is still evaluated with tessellation on pillars, statues and plants. Shadows and sun casts complete the picture.
Graphics test 4 is still in the forest, but the sun is replaced by the moon, so more shadows, multiple light sources and volumetric lighting are present.
CPU is stressed when physics is evaluated. Rendering of rigid bodies and a large number of objects are the purpose of this test. No tessellation, volumetric lighting or post processing is involved.
The combined test includes both CPU and GPU workloads. Graphics deals with tessellation, volumetric lighting, post processing and simulation of soft body physics using DirectCompute, while the central processing unit handles rigid body physics.
The runtime of all the tests should be between 10 and 15 minutes, but this depends entirely on the system. As you can see from the video below, in our case the entire evaluation lasted for about 6 minutes.
3DMark 2011 can be downloaded from here.
