So UL Benchmarks just dropped Solar Bay Extreme, a big update to the 3DMark Solar Bay test that really turns up the heat on ray tracing for both desktops and mobile devices. If you already own 3DMark, it’s a free upgrade, and now you can run the new test to see how your hardware stacks up on the global leaderboards while also using its stress mode to check for throttling or stability issues during long runs.
What makes it interesting is that it’s tuned for each platform’s native API – Vulkan on Android, Metal on Apple, and DirectX 12 on Windows – which means the results are a lot closer to how games actually behave. The update also packs in some impressive visuals, like ray-traced reflections on glossy and rough surfaces, glass reflections, and softer shadows from directional lights.
And to make things even more demanding, UL added a second assembly bay scene where a rival team builds a solar array, introducing more geometry and lighting variety to really expose differences between GPUs and drivers. In short, this isn’t just an upgrade – it’s a stress test designed to show how far your hardware can go with modern ray tracing.
