10 Free Benchmarks for Your PC

The concept of benchmark in computing has been with us for decades, and despite the doubts of many users or criticism from some companies, it has never lost its usefulness. Every change to a computer's configuration (whether software, hardware, or both) can affect its overall performance, and at the end of the day, we need to measure that difference with precision and repeatability. Today we’re going to share a list of 10 free benchmarks that will be your main allies in this long process…

Benchmark: The need to know and compare

A component can deliver its maximum performance from the start... or it can happen exactly the opposite. A previous configuration issue, outdated drivers, lack of optimization, and conflicts with other components are just a handful of possibilities in a long list that we must check no matter what. That's when the benchmark steps in not only as a basic tool, but also as an idea. Measuring your system's performance and comparing it with others is essential to know if everything is in order, or if something is holding your computer back and needs to be fixed.

Processor, graphics card, RAM, and storage drives. Each element has to be evaluated, more than once, with solid tools. Installing a game in isolation and checking how it runs is not enough. At the same time, we must verify that in the comparison of results, the numbers were generated by the same version of the benchmark, since a developer can introduce changes. So, where do we start? Simple: Download these 10 free benchmarks for your PC, and start testing!

The best free benchmarks for your computer

CPU-Z

Primarily aimed at presenting technical information about our processor, CPU-Z has a tab called “Bench” that allows us to evaluate and compare the overall performance of the chip. The benchmark is available in three versions, and its database contains more than twenty processors with predefined results. Basic, but useful as a starting point.

Prime95

This software was designed to “hunt” Mersenne prime numbers under the GIMPS project, but the community was quick to confirm its value as a stress tool, especially on overclocked systems. Prime95 isn't the friendliest software in the world, and some of its parameters require prior study; however, any stability problem will be exposed immediately…

Cinebench R15 - R20 - R23

A sort of de facto standard in current benchmarking. There isn't a YouTuber or hardware portal that doesn't test with some version of Cinebench, and the best part is that the results stand the test of time. I personally recommend downloading the three builds, although you'll need to use a mirror for R20 and R15 (the official page offers R23).

Unigine Heaven

They accuse it of being an old benchmark, but all the complaints basically end there. Unigine Heaven remains an excellent test drive for any graphics card under DirectX 11, and it serves as a spearhead when validating clocks and voltages in overclocking or undervolting sessions. Another interesting option is to test older hardware, as it works with Windows XP.

Unigine Superposition

Do you think Heaven isn't enough? In that case, an eight-year fast-forward will bring you to the doorstep of its successor, Superposition. Much more demanding, prepared for 8K, and with support for virtual reality headsets, an aspect that other graphics card benchmarks ignore completely. Its download is huge (almost 1.3 GB), but it's definitely worth getting a copy.

FurMark

In essence, it's what we know as a power virus, that is, a lightweight but very effective piece of software when it comes to increasing temperature and energy consumption on a graphics card. While it offers a benchmark mode compatible with OpenGL, its priority is stress. It's not a bad idea to run a session with FurMark after Heaven or Superposition if you plan to validate an overclock.

CrystalDiskMark

Another standard if you will, but this time focused on storage. If you think one of your hard drives is dying or that your shiny new SSD isn't reaching the expected speed, CrystalDiskMark will help you verify it. Keep in mind that the software works by partition, not by drive, and the numbers will be more consistent if you increase the number of cycles. Five steps in 1 GB blocks is a good combination.

AS SSD Benchmark

This German software focuses entirely on SSD benchmarking, and unlike CrystalDiskMark, it doesn't just report transfer speeds: it also assigns a score. AS SSD Benchmark is particularly tough on those solid-state drives that don't have a built-in cache, due to its emphasis on random 4K operations.

AIDA64

If we have to think of a benchmark that works as a wildcard, it's AIDA64. The full version requires a license, but its free trial mode is advanced enough to get precise results on memory speed and latency. If you're considering spending a couple of hours tweaking RAM subtimings, AIDA64 will be useful to visualize any change.

3DMark

Many users believe that 3DMark is the benchmark that provides an experience closest to running games, and some YouTubers use it frequently, highlighting its stability and the limited margin of variation between one run and another. The free edition of 3DMark enables the Time Spy, Night Raid, Fire Strike, and Sky Diver benchmarks, a more than healthy number to start testing, but Steam usually puts on sale the advanced edition, and you shouldn't let it pass.

In summary

We have no doubt that these 10 free benchmarks for your PC will be able to cover almost any situation. Tests of new or used hardware, tweaks to the operating system, overclocking, undervolting, memory adjustments, driver updates, temperature control… with such a software package, you can't fail. Good luck!