3DMark Steel Nomad launches… for free!
Time to move on
Since Time Spy launched in 2016, there’s been a truly gigantic number of submitted results:
Almost 48 million.
Over time, the average Time Spy score has approximately quadrupled. This, alongside game and hardware technology developments over the last eight years, meant that Time Spy was starting to show its age, and a new non-ray-traced benchmark was needed.
We’re not fully retiring Time Spy just yet, but we suggest you use our latest benchmarks to get the best benchmarking experience on modern hardware.
Steel Nomad strides into town
Steel Nomad is a non-raytraced, cross-platform GPU benchmark that uses graphics technologies just like your favorite new game titles.
Running at a native 4k resolution, it improves upon Time Spy with more modern implementations of graphics technologies and is roughly three times heavier for your PC than Time Spy, and almost seven times heavier than Fire Strike. You can see this is not reflected in the data from a high-end GPU from 2024, as CPU bottlenecking is negatively impacting frame times in Fire Strike and Time Spy.
Steel Nomad launches today on Windows and Windows-on-Arm using the DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs, Android using Vulkan, and iOS using Metal. As a cross-platform benchmark, we’ll be releasing support for new APIs and platforms throughout the year. Also, due to popular demand, we’ve brought back sound for this benchmark.
Stay tuned for information on macOS soon! As for Linux gamers, unfortunately you’ll have to wait a bit longer, but we are still committed to releasing 3DMark Steel Nomad for you as well.
PC gaming is more accessible, portable and flexible than ever. Desktop rigs are pushing more frames than ever, laptops are capable of comfortably playing top-end games, phones and tablets have the power to deliver full gaming experiences, and we’ve seen the rise of portable handheld gaming PCs in recent years.
With so many hardware configurations, Steel Nomad arrives alongside Steel Nomad Light, letting gamers, reviewers, and enterprises test all their gaming hardware in a non-ray-traced gaming workload.
With the addition of these two benchmarks, the 3DMark application provides a complete set of benchmarks for testing modern gaming hardware in both raytraced and non-raytraced gaming situations.
| Very Heavy | Heavy | Medium | Light | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ray-tracing | Speed Way(Windows only) | Port Royal(Windows only) | Solar Bay(cross-platform) | |
| Non-ray-tracing | Steel Nomad(cross-platform) | Steel Nomad Light (cross-platform) | Wild Life Extreme(cross-platform) |
Explorer mode, you’ll be able to explore the benchmark scene and toggle or change graphics settings. Hidden in the world are several secret locations for you to find and many Easter eggs referencing the last 25 years of 3DMark Benchmarks. We recommend enabling sound for the full experience. Explorer mode for Steel Nomad and Steel Nomad Light is available for everyone who has purchased 3DMark.
Available now
3DMark Steel Nomad is available as a free update to all 3DMark users. 3DMark is available to purchase on Steam, the Epic Games Store, or directly from UL Solutions for $34.99. To celebrate the launch of Steel Nomad, 3DMark will be 75% off for one week.
The 3DMark App is free on the App Store and Google Play store
Related Web URL: https://benchmarks.ul.com/3dmark
