(Credit: UL Solutions)
The Thermal Grizzly stand at Computex 2026 has been running what could be the first public demo of the next-generation 3DMark ray-tracing benchmark, VideoCardz reports.
It looks beautiful and targets 4K resolution, so it will be demanding for even powerful, modern GPUs. Fortunately, it's also letting users take advantage of dynamic upscaling and frame generation, which should help with the frame rate. It's unclear what it'll do to your score, though. Maybe that's cheating.
3DMark developer UL Solutions (Formerly Futuremark) has been a standout 3D gaming benchmark developer for decades. Despite increased competition today, 3DMark remains a gold-standard benchmark for modern GPUs. Ray tracing has become an integral part of that in recent years, and 3DMark has released several ray-tracing-first benchmarks, including Port Royal, Solar Bay, and Speedway. Now it looks like it might have another in the works.
ComputerBase spotted a demo of the new benchmark running at the Thermal Grizzly stand in Taipei. It's one of the benchmark's first sponsors, so it was able to get an early glimpse of what it looks like and what it takes to run.
Described on-screen as an "Upcoming flagship ultra-high-end Path Tracing benchmark," the tests can use "AI upscaling and frame gen, as well as a native 4K mode," to balance demand with compatibility with modern performance and visual-enhancing features. It also claims to be "The most demanding 3DMark benchmark to date." Considering how it looks, I don't doubt it. My 7900XTX is nervous.
The demo itself displays a "Work in progress" banner while in motion, so it may change before wider release. It appears to depict a sci-fi scene with a robotic character moving down a corridor, featuring numerous reflective surfaces, high-contrast light sources, and detailed moving parts. They cross a futuristic catwalk and interact with various machines and robots inside and outside, before we pan across some alien-looking characters enjoying themselves at a cafe.
Existing 3DMark ray-tracing benchmarks target less contemporary technologies and lower-resolution ray-traced reflections. This newer benchmark seems to up the ante to 4K, as well as focusing on path tracing, a more demanding but more visually impressive form of ray tracing.
The fact that this benchmark also uses upscaling and frame generation suggests that it's not just looking to test raw performance, but also to test how hardware AI accelerators can facilitate these enhancing technologies without significantly impacting latency.
UL hasn't announced this benchmark yet. In the meantime, the Solar Bay Extreme benchmark is particularly difficult to achieve strong frame rates on, even for top-tier GPUs.