Some brief details have been revealed about Futuremark's next installment of their popular 3DMark benchmarking software, this to be called "3DMark Next".

Up until now we've not heard or seen anything about the new badboy to bring the most extreme of systems to their knees, but what is now confirmed is that it will be based around DX10 / Shader Model 4.0, thus will require Windows Vista to run.

What is also revealed is the minimum and recommended system specifications to be able to run it.

Minimum System Requirements:-

* x86/x64 single core CPU with SSE2 support. Performance similar to Intel Pentium D 3.2 GHz or better.
* Fully D3D10/SM4.0 compliant graphics card, 256 MB
* 1024 MB RAM
* 2 GB Free Disk Space
* Windows Vista (Server editions not supported)

Recommended System Requirements:-

* Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or equivalent AMD CPU.
* Fully D3D10/SM4.0 compliant graphics card, 512 MB
* 2048 MB RAM
* 2 GB Free Disk Space
* Windows Vista (Server editions not supported)

FutureMark's "YouGamers" website also has an online system checker now operative which is able to analyze your system and report back on which components get the tick of approval for 3DMark Next.