Benchmarking your system can be a fun and interesting way to see how fast your PC hardware performs compared to other users around the world. It’s also handy to help spot any areas where potential performance is not what it perhaps should be. For years Futuremark had been the daddy when it comes to benchmarking software with their 3D Mark and PC Mark suites. The free versions are a bit limited in their operation, but Futuremark does have a massive online database of scores from 1,000’s of users to compare with.
Auslogics Benchtown has actually been around for several months, but it is really in more recent weeks the software has been made a lot more accurate with its scoring system and the Benchtown website now has close to 1,500 results to look through for comparison. Benchtown can give you scores for your core system components; CPU, Memory, Hard drive, 2D grapihics and 3D gaming graphics.
To get started, download and install the software, don’t forget to untick the Auslogics toolbar and Ask start page options, and then run it.
The main window is pretty clean with just the ‘Rate now’ button to start the benchmark and a couple of others down the side. ‘System Information’ will obviously give you a bit of a rundown of your current hardware specs:
‘Program Settings’ allows you to only run specific tests or change the hard drive to test. All tests need to be performed to get a full score which is acceptable for the online results. Note the ‘Estimated time’. PC Mark can take an hour or more so this is a lot quicker!
Click ‘Rate now’ to start the tests. There will follow a series of screens, some of which will have ratings graphs and some with 2D or 3D graphics.
After the tests have completed, Benchtown will then present you with a final overall ‘Ausmarks’ score and the individual scores for each test.
When you click ‘Compare with friends’, the Benchtown website will open where you can create an account if you wish and submit the scores. Don’t want to create an account? No problem, just browse the already submitted results to see how well your system hardware has performed compared to others.
Auslogics Benchtown is compatible with XP, Vista and Win7 32 bit & 64 bit