DirectX 11 video card benchmark for gamers

Powerful spotlights light up the depths as a team of submersibles explore the deep sea. This GPU graphics test features a large number of spot and point lights, with some of the spot lights casting shadows. Volumetric illumination with noise adjusted optical density creates the effect of murky water. There is no tesselation in this test.

A pair of submersibles uncover the rich textures of the sea floor. Deep Sea Graphics Test 2 features fewer lights than Graphics Test 1 but introduces a moderate amount of tesselated geometry on the rocks, corals and man-made structures. Post processing adds depth of field and other camera lens effects.

The ruined remains of a lost civilization. An abandoned dig site. Secrets hidden deep in the jungle are uncovered with atmospheric lighting and DirectX 11 tessellation. Volumetric lighting illuminates the scene with bright sunlight filtering through the dense foliage. Tessellation adds rich detail to the temple carvings and the jungle foliage.

Lit up by the bright headlights of abandoned vehicles and the blue light of the Moon, the temple shows its sinister side. This GPU test features heavy tesselation and the majority of the workload comes from drawing tessellated geometry. The Moon acts as a shadow casting directional light and the headlights are shadow casting spot lights.

The Physics test is a pure CPU performance benchmark using lightweight rendering techniques to minimise any GPU impact on scoring. The test contains a multi-theaded simulation of a large number of rigid bodies, some connected with joints, colliding using the Bullet Open Source Physics Library.

The Combined test includes both CPU and GPU workloads. The CPU runs a rigid body physics simulation with a moderate number of colliding and jointed objects. The GPU simulates soft body physics using DirectCompute while simultaneously rendering tesselated geometry, volumetric lighting and post processing effects.

3DMark 11 is compatible with Windows 8 when using the latest SystemInfo component. With three presents ranging from Entry to Extreme you can use 3DMark 11 to test the gaming performance of all kinds of Windows 8 PCs from lightweight tablets and notebooks to high-end desktops.

With 3DMark 11 and Steam you get easy installation, automatic updates, friends leaderboards and more. You can freely move your Advanced Edition key between the Steam version and the stand-alone version. For details please read our 3DMark Steam FAQ.

DirectX 11 is designed to use the power of multi-core processors, providing efficient support for sophisticated shading and texturing techniques such as hardware tessellation. See the stunning possibilities for yourself in the 3DMark 11 audio visual demo.