5 Apps to Benchmark or Stress Test Your GPU in Ubuntu Linux

Want to do performance test on your graphics card? Here I’m going to introduce some for you that work on Linux desktop.

Benchmark or stress test is a way to measure your hardware performance, tell if it’s working the way it should be, and compare with other devices.

When you got a new device, installed new drivers, or changed some configuration options, you may do the performance test on the device. And, here are some tools for benchmarking GPU in Linux.

1. FurMark

FurMark, aka GPU Burner, is a popular free application to do OpenGL and Vulkan stress-test and benchmark for GPUs.

It provides a scene that a big donut is falling infinitely, that can stress test or benchmark your GPU with either OpenGL or Vulkan API. And, it supports screen resolutions ranging from 400×300 to 7680×4320.

As well, it supports uploading the your test results to a online database, though optional. There (click “Scores” in bottom of app window) you can compare to other GPUs by viewing their scores.

Get FurMark

FurMark is available for Linux as 7zip package via the link button below:

Download FurMark

It’s a portable non-install package. Just download it, extract and navigate to the app folder, finally double-click run “FurMark_GUI” file to launch it.

2. GpuTest (FurMark 1)

If you would like to perform the test with the classic FurMark 1, then GpuTest is available for choice. It’s very old (last updated in 2014), though still works in my case in Ubuntu 24.04 with little modify on the python script.

Besides FurMark 1 scene, it also supports cool TessMark, GiMark, PixMark Julia, PixMark Piano, PixMark Voloplosion, and Plot3D animations. Also, it has a online scores platform. However, only OpenGL graphics API is support.

GpuTest app window

Get GpuTest

GpuTest is available to download via the link below:

Download GpuTest

Linux users can go to this page directly for the download link.

As mentioned, the Python script for launching the GUI is outdated. You have to do following steps one by one to make it work Ubuntu 24.04.

First, download and extract the Linux zip archive via the link above.
Then, navigate to the extracted folder, and open “gputest_gui.py” via text editor.
When file opens, do:
- replace Tkinter with tkinter in line 10.
- Add bracket in line 93, so it will be print ("\nPlease select a test (FurMark is the default test).")

Finally, right-click on blank area in that folder and select “Open in Terminal“. Then, in the pop-up terminal window, run commands:

First, run command to install the required python3-tk module:
```
sudo apt install python3-tk
```
Then, run the python script to launch the app window:
```
python3 gputest_gui.py
```

As you see, the app window so far supports screen resolution up to 1080p. If you want to try it with higher resolution, e.g., 4k, try the command below from-in the app folder:

./GpuTest /test=fur /width=3840 /height=2160 /gpumon_terminal /benchmark /print_score

To do stress test until you close the window, just skip /benchmark /print_score command options.

3. HardInfo

HardInfo, aka System Profiler and Benchmark, is a free open-source tool to report Linux system and hardware information.

The app includes a “GPU Drawing” tool that can benchmark your GPU, and provides result score (higher is better). However, there seems no online database to compare your score with others.

But it’s a choice to tell if your GPU is working the way it should be, or if it gained performance improvements after made system configuration changes.

Get HardInfo

HardInfo is available in most Linux repositories. For Ubuntu, simply launch Ubuntu Software or App Center, then search & install it via Deb package.

To start benchmark with it, either go to “GPU Drawing” in left pane, or use menu "View -> BenchMark".

4. Basemark GPU

Basemark GPU is a professional evaluation tool to benchmark GPU on both mobile and desktop platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and iOS.

It supports all major graphics APIs, including OpenGL, Vulkan, and Microsoft DirectX 12, and provides game-like scene with up to tens of thousands of individual draw calls per frame.

The benchmark tool provides an online database, allowing to compare to other devices through the scores.

Get Basemark GPU

The software is available to download via the link below:

Download Basemark GPU

For Linux, it provides both portable tarball and Flatpak package that works in most Linux.

In my case, I chose the Flatpak package, which can be installed by running the 2 commands below one by one in terminal:

sudo apt install flatpak

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.basemark.BasemarkGPU.flatpakref

5. Blender Benchmark

Blender, the popular free open-source 3D animation software, also provides a benchmark tool to measure CPU and GPU performance.

Different to the 4 apps above, Blender Benchmark tool seems NOT rendering animated screen. It shows 3 static scene with benchmarking process bars, and results score of samples per-minute for each scene.

User can choose to submit results (need login) or just quit app window afterward, and compare to other devices through its online database (see download link below).