3DMark Officially Release PCIe 4.0 Benchmark Update

3DMark PCIe 4.0 Benchmark Tool

The release of motherboards supporting the latest PCIe 4.0 technology is literally just on the horizon and, as such, one of the key factors in the design will be seeing just how much faster video processing can be via the much greater bandwidth offered.

It does, however, raise the question of exactly how one would be able to tell the difference. Specifically in terms of quantifying it with a comparative ‘number’. Well, earlier this month popular benchmarking application 3DMark announced that they were planning to release an update to specifically test this and, the good news is, it has now been released!

How Good Is PCIe 4.0?

The short answer is, no one really knows at the moment. Well, at least not yet! Based on the specification, however, it is expected to offer roughly double the bandwidth seen in the existing PCIe 3.0 technology and, as such, in terms of ‘performance boosts’ should be quite significant.

The release of this benchmarking tool, however, should give us some solid comparative results which otherwise would’ve been difficult to achieve.

For details on the upcoming motherboard releases, be sure to check out this article here!

What Does 3DMark Have To Say?

PCI Express (PCIe) is a standard interface that provides high-bandwidth communication between devices in a computer. Next-generation PCI Express 4.0 interfaces provide up to twice the bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0.

With more bandwidth, games can transfer more data, reduce loading times, and support more complex scenes. The first motherboards and graphics cards to support PCIe 4.0 are expected to arrive this summer.

3DMark feature tests are special tests designed to highlight specific techniques, functions or capabilities. The 3DMark PCI Express feature test is designed to measure the bandwidth available to your GPU over your computer’s PCI Express interface.

The test aims to make bandwidth the limiting factor for performance. It does this by uploading a large amount of vertex and texture data to the GPU for each frame. The goal is to transfer enough data to saturate the PCIe 4.0 interface.

The result of the test is the average bandwidth achieved during the test.
As I am sure you are aware, this test is based on a synthetic scenario. In real-world use with today’s rendering pipelines, a PC’s gaming performance is unlikely to be limited by PCIe bandwidth. Nevertheless, the increase in bandwidth that PCIe 4.0 brings is sure to open up new possibilities with future hardware. The 3DMark PCI Express feature test offers an accurate and reliable way to compare bandwidth across PCIe generations and measure the performance of different hardware configurations.

The PCI Express feature test is available now in 3DMark Advanced Edition and 3DMark Professional Edition.

When Is It Out?

The 3DMark update including the PCIe 4.0 benchmarking tool has been released now. As such, it should be available now for any professional or advanced owner. Yes, this is a little early in terms of the actual official PCIe 4.0 release, but it doesn’t hurt to have it ready! Rest assured, we’ll be trying it out when the motherboards start rolling in!

If you would, however, simply like to try out this benchmarking software as a whole, however, it is currently available at a pretty huge discount in the Steam Summer sale. You can check that out via the link here!

What do you think? Are you looking forward to PCIe 4.0? In addition, if you’re planning to make the upgrade, which motherboard do you plan to buy? – Let us know in the comments!