Our favorite benchmarks for testing PCs and how to use them – The Verge

How to get started with Cinebench 2024

2023-09-06T14:03:09-04:00

Here’s what you’ll see. | Image: Maxon

In early September, Maxon announced the release of a major update to its Cinebench benchmark, Cinebench 2024. The big change is that that the new Cinebench tests GPU power in addition to CPU power, whereas the previous version was CPU-only.

If you'd like to see how your PC performs on the new test, it's now free and available for download. And if you've never benchmarked your device before but want to try it out, Cinebench 2024 is a great place to get started. Here's how:

Go to Maxon's website and click the menu in the top left.
Go to Products > Cinebench > Download from Maxon.
Select the version that matches your operating system (Windows, …

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How to run PugetBench for After Effects

2022-06-27T08:55:48-04:00

It’s not one of the prettier benchmarks to be sure.

Over the past few weeks, we've been showing you how you can run some of the benchmarks that we run in our laptop reviews to see how well your PC stacks up to others on the market. Today, we're looking at PugetBench for After Effects, created by the PC manufacturer Puget Systems, which will measure how well your computer can handle VFX and graphics work.

It's important to note that this benchmark is still in beta. It is a bit more glitchy than some of the other Puget benchmarks (including the one for Photoshop, which we talked about earlier). If you're running into problems, Puget Systems has a long list of troubleshooting steps to try. It's …

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How to run PugetBench for Photoshop

2022-06-17T16:39:09-04:00

You can do it in just a couple minutes.

Puget Systems offers a number of different benchmarks to test out your PC using automated real-world tasks in the Adobe Creative Cloud. Some of them (such as the one for Premiere Pro) are somewhat complicated and can take a while to get up and running. But one of them - PugetBench for Photoshop - is very simple.

PugetBench for Photoshop measures how fast your computer can perform various tasks, including mask refinement and gradients as well as filter tasks like lens correction and noise reduction. Unlike some of Puget's other benchmarks, the Photoshop benchmark only requires one quick plug-in to set up.

Note: this benchmark is not yet sup …

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How to run the FPS Benchmark for CS:GO

2022-05-17T12:37:55-04:00

Unlike many of the games we use to test gaming laptops here at The Verge, such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2, CS:GO doesn't have a built-in benchmark. But not to worry - there are third-party benchmarks you can run to see what kind of frame rates your device puts up on this first-person shooter. The one we commonly use, the FPS Benchmark by Ulletical, is free and easy to install.

Here's how to run Ulletical's FPS Benchmark for CS:GO:

Search for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the Steam store and download it. (It's free.)
Click on the title in your Steam library.
Select Workshop.

If you don't see a Workshop option, click the dots on the far right." data-portal-copyright="">

Search for FPS Benchmark.
Hover over …

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How to run the Red Dead Redemption 2 benchmark

2022-04-29T11:00:00-04:00

This is another good benchmark to run

One of the games we often use to test gaming laptops and PCs here at The Verge is Red Dead Redemption 2. It's a popular, demanding game that includes a wide range of effects and scenery, from snowy blizzards to sandy roads and dynamic gunfights. Its benchmark is easy to use and can help you see how well your PC can run demanding games and which settings it can handle.

First, you need to get the game if you don't already have it. To do that:

Open Steam and click Store
Search for Red Dead Redemption 2
Select Add to Cart and check out. It's currently priced at $59.99.

Once the game is downloaded, open it to get started.

How to run the Red Dead R …

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How to run the PugetBench benchmark for Adobe Premiere Pro

2022-04-07T12:43:52-04:00

If you're currently a video creator or are interested in trying it out, you may want to know how well your PC can perform various tasks in Adobe Premiere Pro. One of the best ways to do that is the Puget Systems benchmark for Premiere Pro.

Puget Systems is a PC manufacturer that specializes in professional workstations. They offer a number of different benchmarks for testing hardware in a variety of applications, but the Premiere Pro benchmark is the one we use the most. It will have your computer try all kinds of things, including live playback, export, GPU effects, and CPU effects, and see how it stacks up to the competition. While there …

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How to run the Shadow of the Tomb Raider benchmark

2022-03-30T11:22:17-04:00

This could be you.

If you've just acquired a new game and you're not sure what settings or resolution your PC can run it at without stutter and lag, a benchmark is a good way to try out various profiles before you dive in. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one title with a built-in benchmark that's easy to run.

This benchmark is also a very common test that reviewers run on laptops to put their GPUs to the test. Shadow of the Tomb Raider has ray tracing, so it's a particularly good way to see how well a gaming rig can handle ray tracing. If you want to see how your GPU stacks up to other systems around the internet, the Tomb Raider benchmark is one of the best way …

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How to run Geekbench on your phone or PC

2022-03-28T09:00:00-04:00

For the next few weeks, we're showing you how to run various commonly used benchmarks on your PC. Reviewers like myself find these very helpful in comparing laptops we test to each other. But you don't have to rely on us - you can easily run these benchmarks yourself on your own PC. Geekbench is one of the easiest and fastest ones to run and will show you how your device stacks up against the competition in a few key areas.

Within Geekbench 5 (the latest release), there are a few different tests you can run. Geekbench CPU measures your processor's performance, simulating both single-core and multi-core usage scenarios. When the test is comp …

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How to run Cinebench to test your PC

2022-03-18T13:58:12-04:00

We here at The Verge use benchmark utilities a lot to compare computers to each other and figure out which ones are the most powerful. But that's not their only purpose. You may also want to run them just to see how your own PC stacks up to the competition and make sure it's running as well as it's supposed to.

One of the easiest utilities for beginners to run is Cinebench R23. This program uses your CPU to render a 3D image and evaluates how well it does that. It's free and only takes 10 minutes to run.

Here's how to do it.

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How to Download Cinebench

If you're using a Mac, search for Cinebench in the App Store. If you're on Windows, you ca …

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