3DMark is readying new benchmark built for GeForce RTX ray tracing

If Nvidia is to be believed, the GPU race is no longer about higher and higher resolutions for photorealistic graphics. Instead, it's the compute power necessary to render ray tracing in real-time that matters most. The vaunted GeForce RTX series launched earlier this week and early reviews have been generally positive especially in regards to the RTX 2080 Ti.

As impressive as Nvidia's in-house benchmarks can be, a more standardized approach is preferred for more objective comparisons. UL Futuremark will soon launch a brand new ray tracing benchmark that will test the capabilities of any system running the DirectX ray tracing API. The still-unnamed benchmark is being designed in close collaboration with AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and Microsoft to ensure optimal compatibility and testing methodologies. A short preview of the test scene is linked below.

A ray tracing benchmark was first teased in August for a rumored September launch date but UL has since confirmed a Q4 2018 release instead. In addition to the ray tracing benchmark, a second less-demanding benchmark called Night Raid will be coming in just a few weeks that targets low-power DirectX 12 systems like netbooks, Ultrabooks, tablets, and ARM-based Windows 10 PCs.

Notebookcheck utilizes 3DMark benchmarks in all of our reviews and so we will update our procedures as appropriate when these new benchmarks become available.

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