The industry-standard graphics benchmarking tool Specviewperf, developed by SPECapc and maintained by the SPEC Graphics and Workstation Performance Group, has reached version 15. And the update finally adds what many artists in VFX, animation and real-time graphics have quietly cursed its absence for years: dedicated benchmarks for Blender and Unreal Engine 5.
The new Blender and UE5 bring two of the most widely used production tools into the Specviewperf ecosystem. While previous versions already supported software like Maya, 3ds Max and Solidworks, this release marks the first time Blender and Unreal Engine get their own dedicated GPU punishment routines—sorry, we mean performance tests.
Blender: Geometry Nodes and a Whole Lot of Hair
The Blender benchmark uses an animated forest scene rendered in Blender 3.6 LTS. It includes geometry node-based grass and scatter systems, camera motion, animated characters, and—hold onto your render budgets—3 million hair particles. It’s a pure viewport test using Material Preview shading mode (based on Eevee) and runs on the default OpenGL backend. Eevee’s full capabilities aren’t stressed here, but the setup does reflect common layout and lookdev workflows. No compositing, baking or final render performance is included—this is strictly about interactive viewport performance.
UE5: Nanite, Lumen, and Deferred Rendering on Parade
The Unreal Engine 5 viewset is based on Epic’s own Lyra Starter Game, rendered with UE5.3. The benchmark scene contains geometry from the City Sample demo, including high-resolution Nanite meshes, dynamic lighting via Lumen, and UE5’s deferred renderer. Like the Blender test, UE5 focuses purely on real-time viewport interaction. This includes dynamic shadows, global illumination and LOD transitions. Developers, shaders and lighting artists looking to gauge GPU performance in UE5’s editor will finally get a baseline for how badly their cards sweat.
Expanded GPU Support: Ada, W7900, and Intel Arc Join In
Specviewperf 15 also expands GPU support. It now includes:
- Nvidia RTX 6000 Ada
- AMD Radeon Pro W7900
- Intel Arc Pro graphics
While the software doesn’t ship with in-house test results, vendors are expected to publish official scores soon. Until then, comparisons between different GPU architectures must wait—although there’s nothing stopping you from running your own benchmarks. Just brace yourself for the hair particles.
Still Free, Still for Windows Only
Specviewperf 15 is available for free on Windows 10 and 11. There’s no Linux or macOS version, which is standard for the benchmark. No mention of changes to existing viewsets like Maya, 3ds Max or Solidworks was made in the update.
Bench First, Render Later
As always: just because your GPU survives the Blender stress test doesn’t mean your next production render won’t melt it. These benchmarks are useful for gauging comparative performance, but they do not guarantee production-ready stability, especially in edge-case-heavy workflows typical for post-production and VFX environments. Use the data for buying decisions or bragging rights, not for trusting that 300 million hairs won’t crash halfway through a late-night export.
Where to Get It
You can download Specviewperf 15 from spec.org. There’s no price tag—it’s free—but it may cost you some ego points if your GPU ends up underperforming.
