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Futuremark releases 3DMark 11

by Pete Mason on 7 December 2010, 14:01

Tags: Futuremark

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qa3gv

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Having been teased with screen shots and videos, Futuremark has finally released the latest addition to its 3DMark series - just in time to test out those tasty new GTX 570s.

3DMark 11 is designed to test all of the features that the latest DirectX 11 GPUs support. This will include advanced effects like tessellation, depth of field and volumetric lighting as well as post-processing using DirectCompute. As a result, the suite will be one of the first benchmarks to test all of these advanced features in one program.

The software was originally supposed to be released last week. However, the developers announced that a few minor bugs were causing some unreliable results, so pushed the launch back by a week to make sure that they were worked out.

The Advanced version of the benchmark - which includes pretty much every feature you'd need for testing out your own system - is available now for $19.95 (£15.50 inc VAT), although an upgrade license for anyone with the same version 3DMark Vantage is available at a $5 discount.

A free 'basic' version is also available to download now. Even though it cuts out a lot of the customisation options available in the more expensive edition, it still lets you test your PC out on the 'Performance' preset to see how it stacks up against the rest of the world on Futuremark's leader boards.

More details on 3DMark 11 - which should be making its way into our own test suite before long - are available from the official site. If you grab the benchmark, why not post your scores in the comments section of this post to see how you stack up to the rest of the HEXUS.community.



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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hmmm, a non-free benchmark owned only by a few, and thus destined never to be a ubiquitous standard against which all can compare.

how pointless.

use Heaven 2.1 instead.
Errm - site is not ready yet ?

EDIT: Main site says that there's a free version. Is this correct ?
http://www.futuremark.com/
according to tweaktown, there is indeed a return to an unlimited free version, albeit with limited options just like 2006:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3715/futuremark_s_3dmark_11_benchmarking_suite_reviewed/index3.html

i was working off the hex article which just mentioned the £20/£5 variants.

a free version is marvellous!
Sorry for the mistake. The price (or lack thereof) for the basic version wasn't available right until it launched at 2, so I had to infer a few details. The story has been updated accordingly.

Excellent call on it being free now. Makes far more sense.
cheers bulldog.

i was always peeved with vantage which gave you one free run, made it useful for bragging rights on a new rig, if that floats your boat, but made it useless for assessing the health of a system on an ongoing basis.

much better choice to have a free version, not that they had a choice with Heaven being free.

thank god for market forces.