For gamers
Great for the first ten minutes. Then the frame rate slides.
A benchmark score is a sprint. A game is an hour. SystemCheck measures what your PC holds once it is hot, and names why it fell.
What the report tells you
Three figures, each with its reading.
CPU decay
%
How much throughput the processor lost after its boost ended and it settled. A short boost and one step down early in the run are normal and shown on their own as the boost step. Under 8% is ordinary settling; above 15% is consistent with the cooling being the limit rather than the silicon, and a sensor tool confirms which.
GPU frame pacing
ms
Frame time and its consistency under a fixed-resolution raster load. Stutter shows here as variance before it shows in a game.
The shape
curve
A single step down is consistent with a power budget expiring. A steady slide is consistent with cooling falling behind. A sawtooth is consistent with the machine cycling between the two. A sensor tool confirms which.
The diagnosis
The shape of the curve, read for your case.
01A single step down
Consistent with the boost timer running out and the chip dropping to its sustained power limit; the BIOS power settings confirm it. Normal on most desktops; raising the limit needs a BIOS setting, not a fan.
02A steady slide
Consistent with heat winning: dust, a dried thermal paste, or a case with no exhaust. A sensor tool confirms it. This is the one a fan curve and a clean-out fix.
03A sawtooth
Consistent with the machine cooling, boosting, hitting a limit, dropping, and repeating. Usually a laptop with an aggressive fan profile or a power limit set too close to the boost.
Every class comes with a stated confidence and the measurement’s own noise floor. How the shape is read
Where a browser stops
What it cannot tell you.
- No frame rate for your game: the GPU stage is a fixed scene at a fixed resolution, so the figure compares between runs and machines, not against a game's counter.
- No temperature: no browser exposes a sensor. The curve shows the effect; HWiNFO shows the degrees.
- No exact graphics card model: the browser reports a renderer string and hides the rest on purpose.
Which run
Deep, 9 minutes.
A game session is long. The deep run holds the CPU for three minutes and loops the GPU pass three times, which is what a gaming laptop needs to show its true settled level.
All three kinds are free. The choice is on the set-up screen.
Questions
Asked in these words.
- Why does my FPS drop after a few minutes of playing?
- Almost always one of two things: the processor or graphics card reached a power or temperature limit and stepped its clock down, or something else is now sharing the cores. A sustained-load test separates the two: a limit shows as a curve with a shape, contention shows as noise. The report names which.
- Can a browser test measure gaming performance?
- It measures the thing that decides gaming performance over time, which is how much of its peak a machine holds when hot. It cannot measure a specific game's frame rate; use the game's own counter for that and this test for why the counter fell.
- Should I run on battery or plugged in?
- Plugged in, unless you play on battery. On battery most laptops apply a lower power limit, and the report flags a run on battery so the two are never compared as equals.