The SPECviewperf 15 Benchmark: Innovation and Modernization

By Ross Cunniff, SPECgpc Committee Chair

In 2025, the SPEC Graphics Performance Characterization (SPECgpc) Committee set out to modernize our worldwide standard SPECviewperf benchmark to meet the demands of the latest graphics workflows and to make it easier to update the benchmark in the future. I’m extremely pleased to report that our team delivered not one, but two major steps toward those goals, releasing the SPECviewperf 15 benchmark in May, followed by the SPECviewperf 15.0.1 benchmark in December.

The May release included major updates to the benchmark. We added support for key new graphics APIs – DirectX 12 and Vulkan – to accompany the existing OpenGL API. This allowed us to debut exciting workloads that represent significant new industry use-cases: blender-01, unreal_engine-01 (featuring advanced rendering like Lumen and Nanite), and Enscape-01 (highlighting GPU-accelerated ray tracing). We also updated workloads for the latest versions of major applications, including 3ds Max 2023, CATIA, Creo 9, Maya 2025, and Solidworks 2024. The SPECviewperf 15 benchmark features an all-new graphical user interface (GUI) that makes it much easier to use.

The December release of the SPECviewperf 15.0.1 benchmark introduced our first "snap-in" workload: snx-05. Based on traces from Siemens NX 2406, snx-05 utilizes the OpenGL graphics API and stresses standard OpenGL features, including vertex and pixel shaders, textures, and multisampled antialiasing. The "snap-in" architecture means users can take advantage of the new workload without having to re-run their previous benchmarks.

The advances in the SPECviewperf 15 benchmark means enterprises and end-users can better understand performance requirements when shopping for the latest hardware to run their software, ensuring more effective resource allocation, increased productivity, and improved user experience.