How fast is your PC? Auslogics BenchTown provides an easy way to find out

Australian software company Auslogics has revealed a new free benchmarking tool, BenchTown, and an online community site, BenchTown.com, where you can compare your PC’s performance with others.

The benchmarking options are fairly standard, with your CPU, RAM, hard drive, 2D and 3D graphics performance being tested.

Each component has its speed checked in multiple ways, though – RAM is tested for both bandwidth and latency, for instance – and our initial tests suggest the results are reasonably accurate. Keeping things simple means you can get your final score quite quickly, in around five minutes, and if you want to focus on a specific area (graphics, say) then you can run only those tests for even faster feedback.

Once the benchmark has completed then a “Compare with Friends” button gives you the option to create a free account at the new BenchTown.com (a standard forum registration procedure, they just want your name and email address). Here you’ll immediately see your system ranked against the most recent BenchTown results, and you have the option to compare your PC against others with similar hardware, useful to confirm that your computer is delivering its expected performance.

If you still have questions, a forum allows you to discuss your results with others. (It’s empty as we write, but you could always start a thread – someone has to be first.)

And just in case that’s not enough, Auslogics have also added a social networking element to the site, with friends lists, photos, a private messaging system, and more.

This may be overkill – it’s not going to compete with Facebook any time soon – but the core BenchTown program is likeable enough. The program may not have the power of something like SiSoft Sandra, but it’s good enough for many purposes, and if you’re looking for a quick and simple way to assess your PC’s performance then it’s definitely worth a closer look.

Source : http://www.softwarecrew.com/