[Software] Benchmarking Macs: 3DMark and other testing tools that make it easy to test your Apple Mac’s performance

[protaa]

 

 

It's been a few weeks since Apple's WWDC 2025 event, and while Apple did announce a new Games app that will be included in the new macOS Tahoe later this year, there wasn’t a lot of news on forthcoming titles that Mac gamers can look forward to playing.

There was, however, one important games-related announcement during WWDC that might have gone a little bit under the radar. The announcement came from UL Solutions, with the launch of a new Mac version of its 3DMark benchmarking app.

This is an important development for Mac gamers, as 3DMark is one of the most po[CENSORED]r tools used to test the graphics performance of gaming PCs - and its arrival on the Mac reflects the fact that Macs are finally being taken seriously as a gaming platform. With that in mind, I'd like to take some time to discuss how exactly you can go about benchmarking the best MacBooks and Macs.

And, with A-List games such as Assassin's Creed: Shadows and Cyberpunk 2077 now available for Macs, many of us Mac gamers are wondering how well these games will run on our Macs. As the name suggests, 3DMark does focus specifically on testing performance with games and 3D graphics, but there are other options available that you can use to benchmark your Mac (and also to compare your Mac’s performance with Windows PCs, too).

DIY Benchmarking

Some games (including the aforementioned AC: Shadows and Cyberpunk) do have their own benchmarking tools already built in, which allow you to test your Mac’s performance and see the frames-per-second (FPS) score that it can achieve while running the game.

These tools can be handy as they allow you to experiment with different graphics settings within the game in order to strike the best balance between graphics quality and performance for your particular Mac model. But, of course, these tools only work within individual games, so they don’t give you much indication of how your Mac will work with other games, or how it compares with other Macs or PCs - plus, you'll have to actually buy the game to run the benchmark in most cases.

PC gamers who use Steam probably know that the Steam app includes an option for showing framerates in-game. Unfortunately, the Mac version of Steam can be... a little erratic, and its FPS counter went AWOL sometime around 2023. However, another welcome bit of gaming news that arrived during WWDC was Valve’s announcement that it’s currently testing a new version of Steam, updated specifically for the latest Macs with Apple Silicon processors, so hopefully it'll work more reliably in the future.

 

 

https://www.techradar.com/computing/mac-os/benchmarking-macs-3dmark-and-other-testing-tools-that-make-it-easy-to-test-your-apple-macs-performance