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Review: Kombustor shows how much your graphics hardware can take |
November 27, 2012
Pushing up memory and core speeds on video hardware has consequences, not all of them readily apparent. Your clock-cooked Radeon may sneer at Skyrim on max settings, but those same speeds can make your computer crash and burn when playing Witcher II. This and other inconsistencies mean you need to go beyond FRAPS and your favorite game when looking at overclocked GPU stability. Hardware manufacturer MSI, creators of Afterburner, have conjured up a way to make your overachieving videocard sweat for a change. It's a benchmark called Kombustor, and it's aptly named.
Kombustor's fur test is anything but soft on your GPU.
Kombustor is based on Furmark, a stress test famous in the enthusiast community for frying videocards alive in its quest to probe GPUs' outer limits. MSI dials back the pain a bit, but augments that product's burn-in features with expanded benchmarking capabilities, support for DirectX, linkages to Afterburner for test-and-tune sessions and a whole lot more objects, scenes and settings to look at while it all gets done.
Looks are a big part of what makes Kombustor a pleasure to use. It only weighs in at 14MB, but it manages to look better than anything short of Unigine's 235MB Heaven, not to mention 3DMark's gigabyte-sized suites. The program presents you with a system GPU readout that reports temperature, load and power levels in real time. Below that information, four buttons give you access to various benchmark and stability tests, as well as general software settings. Don't let the small, simple display fool you; there's a lot to play with here.
Tessy Spheres is one of Kombustor's nicer-looking benchmarks.
The 3D Test tab alone sports half a dozen visually distinct benchmarks, each stressing a different API feature set. The GPU burn-in tab is equally feature-rich, with provisions for several variants of DirectX and OpenGL, and a choice of flashy objects to pick from.
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Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2017113/review-kombustor-shows-how-much-your-graphics-hardware-can-take.html
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