Five Apps: Benchmarking tools for diagnosing PC performance

Benchmarking tools

This gallery is also available as a TechRepublic article.

Benchmarking tools are useful for diagnosing PC performance problems or for quantifying a comparison between the performance of two machines. Given the usefulness of benchmarking software, it's no surprise that there are countless benchmarking utilities available on the market. This gallery highlights five such utilities.

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Everest Ultimate Edition Summary

The software provides detailed statistics about things like your operating system, your motherboard, and your storage. 

Everest Ultimate Edition Menu

The software can also perform benchmarking tests for your memory, CPU, and FPU. It even provides a number of established benchmarks so that you can see how your system stacks up.

Everest Ultimate Edition Report Wizard

Additionally, the utility provides a really nice reporting engine that you can use to view and export a variety of report types.

Everest Ultimate Edition Report Summary

Here's an example of a report summary in Everest Ultimate Edition.

Everest Ultimate Edition Report Memory Read

You can save, email, and even print your benchmarking reports.

2. SiSoftware Sandra

SiSoftware Sandra is a modular benchmarking and informational tool for the PC. It costs $49.99 (USD), but a free trial is available for download. The software is also free for private or educational use.

SiSoftware Sandra Home tab

SiSoftware Sandra can be used on domain networks or on standalone PCs. 

SiSoftware Sandra Tools tab

The software uses a collection of modules to evaluate hardware, software, and performance. 

SiSoftware Sandra Benchmarks tab

The software’s functionality can be further extended by adding additional modules.

SiSoftware Sandra Hardware tab

Here's a look at the Hardware tab.

SiSoftware Sandra Software tab

Here's a look at the Software tab.

SiSoftware Sandra Overall Score

The one thing that I found amusing about this particular application was its power consumption metrics. I ran SiSoftware Sandra on a virtual PC. As such, the software did not know how to accurately compute power consumption and therefore reported the virtual machine’s power consumption at 65,496.25 watts.

3. PerformanceTest

PerformanceTest is yet another utility for compiling system information and benchmark performance testing. It costs $26.00 (USD), but a free trial is available for download.

PerformanceTest System

Here's the information you can expect to see on the System tab.

PerformanceTest Summary

PerformanceTest is similar to Everest Ultimate Edition in that it provides a number of established benchmarks as a way of giving you a basis of comparison. 

PerformanceTest Tests

Here are the types of tests you can run in PerformanceTest.

PerformanceTest status

You can follow the progress of a test while it's running.

PerformanceTest results

When the testing results are displayed, your computer’s performance benchmarks are displayed in green alongside the established benchmarks.

PerformanceTest PassMark Advanced Disk Test

Perhaps the best feature of this utility is that you can run custom tests. 

PerformanceTest PassMark Disk Thread test

There is even an option to run scripted testing.

4. Fraps

Fraps is really different from the other benchmarking utilities in this review. I chose to include it because Fraps is a utility that I personally use on a regular basis. It costs $37.00 (USD), but a free trial is available for download.

Fraps FPS

Fraps is designed to help you to benchmark the frame rate of DirectX applications. When playing a game for instance, Fraps displays a yellow number in the upper left corner of the window, indicating your current frame rate. This number dynamically adjusts as your frame rate changes.

Fraps Movies

The other really cool thing about Fraps is that it can record video and screen captures of DirectX applications. Hard core gamers sometimes use Fraps to make a movie of their game play so that they can upload it to YouTube or a similar video hosting service.

Fraps Screenshots

Here are the Fraps screenshots options.

Fraps display

Here you can see the yellow number that's displayed in the upper left corner of the window, indicating the current frame rate. 

5. Fresh Diagnose

Like most of the other utilities that I've reviewed, Fresh Diagnose is a tool for benchmarking performance and for compiling system information. However, there are a couple of things that set Fresh Diagnose apart. 

The first thing that sets Fresh Diagnose apart is the price. It’s free!

Fresh Diagnose Fonts

The second thing that sets Fresh Diagnose apart is the level of detail that it provides. While many utilities provide information on CPU and disk architecture, Fresh Diagnose also provides granular operating system information. For example, the software provides information on fonts that are installed, your system policies, and Windows Startup configuration.

Fresh Diagnose Processor Benchmark

The actual benchmarking capabilities are supposed to be available only to registered users. However, a bug in the program allows non-registered users to launch benchmarks by using the Start command that’s located on the Benchmark menu.

Fresh Diagnose options

Here are some of the options available with Fresh Diagnose.