3DMark SSD "gamer" benchmark

[porina]

 

https://benchmarks.ul.com/news/3dmark-adds-new-ssd-benchmark-for-gamers

 

Didn't think it important enough to do a news post, and a bit lazy to format it even if so  

 

3DMark having been a long time GPU benchmark. More recently they did a "gaming" CPU benchmark, and have now also thrown in their implementation of a "gaming" SSD benchmark.

 

In concept it isn't bad. They took traces of accesses for several gaming scenarios to recreate on the test system. Apparently it needs a 30GB test file to work off, so it does kinda represent a porky game install. The headline output is a benchmark score, with detailed output of average transfer rate and access latency.

 

I'd be curious to see how it performs if it wasn't for one hurdle. This is a paid DLC to the paid 3DMark Advanced, which is probably the version enthusiasts most likely have as it is frequently on sale. While the cost is not huge, the main question is what value does it give? If you have the hardware already, you get a score and... then what? Unlike CPUs and GPUs, there's not really much you can do to overclock or otherwise improve performance of a SSD. Maybe if you're testing software caching strategies? That's a bit of a stretch. Or just checking system performance, but there are other ways to do that.

 

Also the headline score is an abstract value, and only useful if viewed in context of others. I also have to wonder, how the tests are weighted. For example, one is for recording gameplay via OBS. I do wonder if they would have been better to split scores into several sections, for example, loading time (probably most important generally), install time (mix of read/write and/or copy operations?), and game video capture as another output.

 

Benchmark wise, how much does it vary with the SSD itself, or does it get impacted by the rest of the system? If you use it to decide what to buy, then the reviewer will buy and use it.

 

I think this opens more questions than it answers. Think I'll stick to CrystalDiskMark as at least it is clear what the outputs are of that.

 

[emosun]

Who the heck pays for 3dmark

[porina]

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

Who the heck pays for 3dmark

Competitive benchmarkers (overclockers) and reviewers. 3DMark Advanced is often on sale so only a handful of $. If you're running a LOT of benchmarks, you can save a ton of time compared to using the free version which for the GPU tests run a "demo" before the bench itself. I think there is more stuff beyond that.

[aDoomGuy]

30 minutes ago, porina said:

the main question is what value does it give?

Jack **** lol. What is even the point. If you wanna see how fast you can start up a game... Just start up a bloody game.... If you really want a synthetic score just do a Crystal run.

 

29 minutes ago, emosun said:

Who the heck pays for 3dmark

Hell I got it on sale on Steam for pretty much nothing. Wont pay for any of the dlc crap though, like this. Just seems like an attempt at a quick cash grab if you ask me.

[Bad5ector]

36 minutes ago, emosun said:

Who the heck pays for 3dmark

Got mine for like 5bux on sale. Totally worth it IMO.

 

2 minutes ago, aDoomGuy said:

Hell I got it on sale on Steam for pretty much nothing. Wont pay for any of the dlc crap though, like this. Just seems like an attempt at a quick cash grab if you ask me.

Word.

[Tan3l6]

It took 25 minutes to tell me that the "bandwidth" .. what ever that means in this occasion is 321MB/s for m.2 NMVe SSD (Adata SX8200 Pro).

What does it even benchmark?

[StDragon]

"RAM Disk" 

[CourtjustCourt]

Just got it and ran the test... http://www.3dmark.com/strg/3588.. Score: 318 Bandwith: 53.35 MB/S

 

One major problem tho: I'm running 980 Pro's in Raid 0!!!

 

Crystal Disk I get 12,750 - 13,000+ MB/s sequential reads..

 

 

[AlTech]

On 11/10/2021 at 6:07 PM, porina said:

I think there is more stuff beyond that.

Some of 3DMark's tests are behind the paywalls of the Advanced Edition or their own separate spin off programs similar to it.