Click on the Stress tests icon in the navigation bar to open the Stress tests screen.
Stress testing is a useful way to check the reliability and stability of your system. It can also identify faulty hardware or a need for better cooling. The best time to run the stress test is after buying or building a new PC, upgrading your graphics card, or overclocking your GPU.
The aim of stress testing is to place a high load on the system for an extended period of time to expose any problems. 3DMark Stress Tests work by looping a benchmark graphics test continuously without pausing for loading screens or other breaks. A Stress Test takes around 20 minutes to run when set to the default 20 loops, which is usually enough to find any significant stability or cooling issues.
If your GPU crashes, hangs, or produces visual artifacts during a stress test, it may indicate a reliability or stability problem. If it overheats and shuts down, you may need more cooling in your computer.
Options
Test Selection
Use this drop-down to choose a Stress Test. 3DMark offers many tests, each designed for a specific class of hardware. You should use the test most suited to the system you are testing.
Check the system requirements for the benchmark before running a stress test. The stress test will fail if your system does not have enough video memory to run the benchmark. A crash on a system that does not meet this requirement is not a sign of a hardware stability problem.
Rendering device
If your system has multiple GPUs, you can use this drop-down to choose which GPU is used for the stress test.
Display
If your system has multiple displays, you can use this drop-down to choose which display is used for the stress test.
Number of loops
In 3DMark Professional Edition, you can set the number of loops for the test. The minimum number of loops is 2. The maximum is 5000. You can stop the test at any time by pressing the ESC key.
Enable window mode
In 3DMark Professional Edition, use this option to run the stress test in a window.