MaxxPi2 Single

The best way to know whether or not your rig can run the latest games is to actually try them out. However, it can take some time to download and install, leaving room for other monitoring utilities to tell you just how powerful your PC is. This is also the case with MaxxPi2 Single, which puts tons of pressure on your CPU to see how well it performs.

Lightweight and easy to use

A neat advantage for an application of this kind is that you can take it with you on a USB Flash drive and use on other machines, because it does not require installation. It also means registries are kept intact so your PC's health status is not affected.
Since it's a benchmarking utility, expect your PC to be thoroughly used. Preparation is simply done by ceasing all other activities so the application can flawlessly do its job. Most of the task falls in the hands of your CPU, because it needs to determine a custom number of PI digits, which it then displays in the main window.

Far from being a pro

A drop down menu is at your disposal to select from 128 KB to 256 MB, which determines the amount of pressure put on the CPU. There are a few settings you can manage before hitting the “Calculate” button, such as the possibility to manually select cores, as well as priority.
Other than that there's an option to take a screenshot and save it either to file or your clipboard. Sadly, you don't really get an idea of the PC's potential, with very little and confusing results displayed. Only time is provided and you can compare results with others online.

A few last words

All things considered, we can state that MaxxPi2 Single is not the best of its kind, not because of the lack of more advanced features, but the result doesn't really help a lot. Pressure is put on your PC, but with a custom number of PI digits displayed in a given time you won't be able to tell anything about your computer.