3DMark 'Time Spy' Benchmarks DX12 Performance, Available Now

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3DMark has been promising a DirectX 12 benchmark for some time now, and the company has finally delivered on its promise with the debut of Time Spy.

The new 3DMark test was initially slated for an early 2016 release, but it took the backseat for a recent UI upgrade to the benchmarking suite. However, Time Spy is available for download now for 3DMark Basic, Advanced and Demo versions. The only exception is the Professional edition (you’ll have to contact 3DMark directly for a quote), which doesn’t currently include a way to update or individually install the new Time Spy test.

The test itself supports all of DirectX 12’s exclusive features, including asynchronous compute, explicit multi-adapter and multi-threading technologies. The benchmark was built from the ground up to take full advantage of the low-level graphics API.

Time Spy visits scenes from previous 3DMark benchmarks in a museum-like setting. The new test renders the scene at a resolution of 2560 x 1440, and it stresses both the GPU and CPU individually, in addition providing an overall and combined score similar to previous 3DMark benchmarks.

3DMark Basic, Advanced and Demo users that are interested in testing their system’s DirectX 12 performance prowess can either download the DLC manually from the Steam Store or update the module within the 3DMark program. Standalone versions of 3DMark are available directly from the company’s website.

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Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest
Derek Forrest is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He writes hardware news and reviews gaming desktops and laptops.
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Kenneth Barker
    Sweet!!

    I was getting rather sick of firestrike. Glad to see 3DMark pumping out so many good updates lately. With the VR benchmark and now this. It is finally much easier to compare card performance in DX12. We no longer need to rely on AoS or a game missing DX12 features here and there.
    Reply
  • chuckydb
    Finally, let the benches begin!!!!
    Reply
  • bit_user
    DX 12 is exclusive to Windows 10, right? Hopefully, 3DMark will do a Vulkan port. Their API test already includes Vulkan.

    18279607 said:
    Glad to see 3DMark pumping out so many good updates lately. With the VR benchmark and now this.
    VR mark is still unreleased, no? There's a demo of it in 3D Mark, which is nice.

    BTW, I just bought 3D Mark Advanced Edition on sale @ Steam for $5. The sale is over, though. I wish they'd do more of that, as $25 is more than I'm willing to spend on something like this.
    Reply
  • Huughes
    It burns T.T

    3553 with AMD Radeon R9 290(1x) and Intel Core i7-3770K Processor

    Some of the scenes remind me of the old Microsoft screensaver with the pipes...The last one to be more specific.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    18280312 said:
    It burns T.T

    3553 with AMD Radeon R9 290(1x) and Intel Core i7-3770K Processor
    3DMark benchies seem designed to target GPUs a generation or so ahead. I like downloading their old releases and running them with maxed out settings and VSync forced. You can find up to 3DMark06 in the legacy section of their website, along with a key to unlock the full version.
    Reply
  • Sakkura
    Very interesting results when run with Async compute on and off (great that it has that option BTW).

    GTX 980 and 970 perform practically the same whether Async compute is on or off. GTX 1070 does perform a little better with it on, but AMD still sees a significantly bigger performance jump with it. The RX 480 goes from just about matching a 980 without Async compute, to being well ahead of it with Async compute. Worth noting AMDs older cards benefit just as much from Async compute.
    Reply
  • SinxarKnights
    And the backlash has begun: http://store.steampowered.com/app/496100/

    Knew that was coming when I went to benchmark and couldn't skip the demo (I have the Advanced Edition of 3DMark). Checking into the situation, Time Spy is a separate purchase for existing 3DMark Advanced owners, free for new customers.

    Of course the benchmark is free for everybody without any options.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    18281825 said:
    Checking into the situation, Time Spy is a separate purchase for existing 3DMark Advanced owners, free for new customers.
    That's lame. I hope they reverse course, cuz there's no chance of me paying for the upgrade.

    Maybe they realized that most people who would buy 3D Mark Advanced already owned it, and were worried about how to monetize the new benchmark. IMO, their standard pricing model is wrong. I think they'd sell millions, if they kept it costing just a few $, on Steam & Google Play.

    Perhaps the problem is that the different benchmarks are bundled, in the first place. Maybe they should un-bundle them and sell each benchmark for a couple $.
    Reply
  • SinxarKnights
    18282767 said:
    Perhaps the problem is that the different benchmarks are bundled, in the first place. Maybe they should un-bundle them and sell each benchmark for a couple $.

    Yeah you know I understand why they did that and I think the benchmarks being bundled is the issue here as well. I just paid the $5 because I use 3DMark surprisingly often. But yeah imagine the development cost. If they just gave it away for free (well, they technically do but it advertising supported by logo placement in-benchmark) they would have just lost all that money for basically no reason.
    Reply
  • Van der Berg
    It is very nice to see the movie and it is nice to see what is possible
    Reply