The gaming benchmark tool is back, offering a number of tweaks over last year's release.

Futuremark, the firm who specialise in creating benchmarking tools, has released the 2006 version of 3DMark, the PC gaming benchmarking tool that pushes PCs to their very limit. For those unfamiliar with 3DMark, it scores your PC's performance based on how it copes with a number of game-like scenes, which can then be placed online and compared with other users' scores.

3DMark06 is actually pretty similar to 3DMark05, with most of the tests being tweaked versions of those that appeared last year. Aside from adding new graphics techniques to the existing tests, Futuremark has included a brand new test called Deep Freeze. This depicts a research centre in the Antarctica and is about as demanding as anything you can run on a PC today.

To run all the tests you'll need a SM 3.0 compatible video card, and that won't guarantee good scores and performance; older SM 2.0 video cards, such as the Radeon 9800 Pro, simply won't run a number of the tests.

If you want to show-off your PC's great performance, head over to the Futuremark website for a full list of download locations.