How to use Passware Hardware Benchmark

Passware Kit Business, Forensic, and Ultimate editions use all the available computational resources: CPUs, NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, and multiple computers. Hardware benchmark allows users to measure hardware performance on typical password recovery tasks (over a dozen of the most popular file types, such as MS Office, APFS, iTunes backup, RAR, BitLocker, etc.). It takes up to 5 minutes to run a password recovery speed test on each encryption type, so about 30 minutes for all file types. Hardware Benchmark is also available in the Demo version of PK Business and Forensic editions.

You can use the benchmark results to optimize the system configuration and solve password recovery issues efficiently!

• Using Hardware Benchmark
• Sharing Hardware Benchmark Results
• Why does the CPU show zero password recovery speed?
• Error: "Hardware calibration timeout exceeded" error during benchmark process. How to proceed?
  
  

Using Hardware Benchmark

1. On the Start Page, click Tools and select Hardware Benchmark:

2. Select hardware and file types to test. Manage the Passware Kit Agents in the Resource Manager before starting the test. Once ready, click Start.

It might take up to five minutes for each performance test to complete, depending on the encryption type. Wait for Passware Kit to complete all tasks and provide a full report on the password recovery speed and CPU/GPU temperatures on the local computer and distributed Agents.

3. Click Save Report to save the benchmark results as a .CSV file for further analysis.

Sharing Hardware Benchmark Results

The effectiveness of password recovery is determined by hardware capabilities. Passware Team collects benchmark results shared by customers and publishes them on the summary page:
https://www.passware.com/benchmark

To contribute:

• Run Hardware Benchmark and select the hardware and file types for testing.
• After completion, save the report and click Share Results.
• Attach the benchmark CSV report generated by Passware Kit to the form on the website, enter your email address (optional) and click Submit. The report will be analyzed and added to Passware’s Hardware Benchmark table.

Why does the CPU show zero password recovery speed?

Each GPU requires two CPU cores for password calculation. If the number of GPU cards utilized equals 2x the number of CPU cores, the CPU’s contribution will be zero.

Error: "Hardware calibration timeout exceeded" error during benchmark process. How to proceed?

The default timeout for GPU card calibration is set to 180,000 milliseconds (3 minutes). If the GPU card or Agent is busy or slow due to connection issues, the calibration may take longer and cause the "Calibration timeout error".
To increase the calibration timeout:

Navigate to Tools | Options | Troubleshooting and set the following value:

BENCHMARK_CALIBRATION_TIMEOUT
300000

This increases the timeout to 300,000 milliseconds (5 minutes). If the error persists, try a higher value or contact Support for assistance.