Fire Strike Ultra lets you test your PC at 4K, even if you don’t have a 4K monitor

By Konrad Krawczyk Published October 14, 2014

fire strike ultra tests graphics cards at 4k resolution firestrike — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Futuremark, the developer of the popular 3DMark and PCMark computing benchmarking suites, has released an update to the former that allows users to run tests at 4K resolution.

The new 4K benchmark is called Fire Strike Ultra, and it’s a more demanding version of Fire Strike, which already was the most stressful test that 3DMark had in its arsenal.

Recommended Videos

The sweet part of this update is that you don’t need a 4K monitor in order to see if your rig can handle 4K workloads. How? We got some insight from Futuremark.

“3DMark renders the test content internally at 4K Ultra HD resolution (3840 x 2160),” Futuremark said when speaking to Digital Trends. “This output is then scaled to your Windows desktop display resolution.”

There are some conditions that you need to satisfy in order to run this test, though. For starters, you’ll need a graphics card with at least 3GB of RAM. On top of that, you’ll need either 3DMark Advanced Edition, or 3DMark Professional Editon in order to get access to Fire Strike Ultra. Users of 3DMark Basic Edition will have to upgrade to one of the other versions.

3DMark Advanced Edition costs $24.95, and we recommend that you grab that version if you want to get your hands on Fire Strike Ultra. That’s mostly because 3DMark Professional Edition costs $995.

Konrad Krawczyk

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Konrad covers desktops, laptops, tablets, sports tech and subjects in between for Digital Trends. Prior to joining DT, he…

Computing

LG’s new Gram Pro finally looks like a serious MacBook Pro rival

An LG Gram laptop on a table.

Just ahead of CES, LG has announced a refresh to its Gram Pro lineup, as well as launched a budget-friendly Gram Book. The tweaked Gram Pro laptops are the most exciting, though, with the the LG Gram Pro 17 catching my eye.

First off, it's been thinned out a bit, dropping down to 0.62 inches thick, which is almost the same thickness as the 16-inch MacBook Pro. The LG Gram Pro 17 is also a full pound and a half lighter than the MacBook Pro, both of which are striving to be one of the best laptops you can buy.

Computing

Nvidia’s new GPUs show up in prebuilts, but the RTX 5090 is missing

iBUYPOWER RTX for AI PCs side view of pre-built on sale hero

Nvidia's upcoming RTX 5080 and RTX 5070 Ti just appeared in several iBUYPOWER gaming PCs. This is the first U.S. retailer to list Nvidia's RTX 50-series in prebuilt systems. The listings are interesting, with performance figures that really don't add up. Still, the biggest question is: Where's the GPU that's bound to beat all the current best graphics cards? Yes, we're talking about RTX 5090.

The listings have already been taken down, but they were preserved by VideoCardz. A total of five systems were listed by iBUYPOWER, but they all contained the same two GPUs -- either the RTX 5080 or the RTX 5070 Ti. Both cards are said to come with 16GB of memory, and we expect them to be announced on January 6 during the CES 2025 keynote held by Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang.

Computing

OLED gaming monitors are about to get a lot brighter

Path of Exile 2 running on an Asus gaming monitor.

One of the biggest criticisms leveled against OLED monitors, despite being some of the best gaming monitors you can buy, is how dim they are. Although brightness is steadily increasing, it looks like the next crop of OLED gaming monitors will make quite the leap when it comes to HDR performance. Ahead of CES 2025, VESA has revealed a new tier of its DisplayHDR standard that's focused squarely on the brightness of OLED monitors.

The certification is DisplayHDR True Black 1,000. Most OLED gaming monitors, such as the MSI MPG 321URX or Alienware 27 QD-OLED, are certified with DisplayHDR True Black 400. This certification level is reserved for OLED -- or extremely high-end mini-LED -- displays that achieve nearly perfect black levels. According to VESA's specifications, the display has to reach 0.0005 nits with a checkboard pattern. Now, VESA is focusing on the other end of the spectrum, adding a more demanding tier that maintains those low black levels while pushing brightness higher.