Numerically challenging, comprehensive benchmark cases are of great importance for
researchers in the eld of CFD. Numerical benchmark cases oer researchers frameworks to
quantitatively explore limits of the computational tools and to validate them. Therefore,
we focus on simulation of numerically challenging benchmark tests, laminar and transient
3D 
ows around a cylinder, and aim to establish a new comprehensive benchmark case by
doing direct numerical simulations with three distinct CFD software packages. Although the
underlying benchmark problems have been dened rstly in 1996, the rst case which was
a steady simulation of 
ow around a cylinder at Re = 20 could be accurately solved rst in
2002 by John. Moreover, there is no precisely determined results for non-stationary case, the
simulation of transient 
ow with time varying Reynolds number. The benchmark problems
are studied with three CFD software packages, OpenFOAM, Ansys-CFX and FeatFlow
which employ dierent numerical approaches to the discretization of the incompressible
Navier-Stokes equations, namely nite volume method, element based nite volume method
and nite element method respectively. The rst benchmark test is considered as the
/necessary condition`` for the software tools, then they are compared according to their
accuracy and performance in the second benchmark test. All the software tools successfully
pass the rst test and show well agreeing results for the second case such that the benchmark
result was precisely determined. As a main result, the CFD software package with high
order nite element approximation has been found to be computationally more efficient and
accurate than the ones adopting low order space discretization methods.