diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index fa546edee..2d46e6478 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ compiler:
 env:
   matrix:
    - DEBUG=False ENABLE_LOG=True  DEFAULT_LOG_SEVERITY=debug XMLPARSER="libxml2" DEMO=False BENCHMARK=False CUSTOM_CXXFLAGS="" CUSTOM_LDFLAGS=""
-   - DEBUG=False ENABLE_LOG=False DEFAULT_LOG_SEVERITY=none  XMLPARSER="ptree"   DEMO=False BENCHMARK=False CUSTOM_CXXFLAGS="" CUSTOM_LDFLAGS=""
+   - DEBUG=False ENABLE_LOG=False DEFAULT_LOG_SEVERITY=none  XMLPARSER="ptree"   DEMO=False BENCHMARK=True CUSTOM_CXXFLAGS="" CUSTOM_LDFLAGS=""
 
 # travis + ubuntugis with gdal and postggis leads to many potential dead-end conflicts
 # the below is thanks to https://github.com/CartoDB/Windshaft/blob/d82fe08b32fc7907bbe907ab290f8a082215ae26/.travis.yml#L1
@@ -50,4 +50,4 @@ script:
  - make test
  - source localize.sh && make grind
  - if [[ ${BENCHMARK} != False ]]; then make bench; fi;
- - if [[ ${BENCHMARK} != False ]]; then for i in $(ls tests/visual_tests/styles/*xml); do echo $i;./benchmark/out/test_rendering --name "text rendering" --map $i --width 1024 --height 1024 --iterations 2 --threads 10;done;fi
+ - if [[ ${BENCHMARK} != False ]]; then for i in $(ls tests/visual_tests/styles/*xml); do echo $i;./benchmark/out/test_rendering --name "text rendering" --map $i --width 1024 --height 1024 --iterations 2 --threads 5;done;fi