diff --git a/examples/clocked_perft.py b/examples/clocked_perft.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..464fff0ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/clocked_perft.py
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+"""Benchmark legal-move generation for a single chess position.
+
+Unlike examples/perft/perft.py, this script takes a FEN directly instead of
+reading a perft-suite file. It reports a timed node count for each depth and
+checks the known start-position counts against a small canonical reference table.
+
+Examples:
+    python clocked_perft.py
+    python clocked_perft.py "<FEN>" 3
+
+The start-position reference counts are d1=20, d2=400, d3=8902, d4=197281,
+and d5=4865609.
+"""
+
+import argparse
+import time
+
+import chess
+
+
+STARTPOS_PERFT = {
+    1: 20,
+    2: 400,
+    3: 8902,
+    4: 197281,
+    5: 4865609,
+}
+
+
+def perft(depth: int, board: chess.Board) -> int:
+    """Return the number of legal move sequences exactly depth plies long."""
+    if depth <= 0:
+        return 1
+    if depth == 1:
+        return board.legal_moves.count()
+
+    nodes = 0
+    for move in board.legal_moves:
+        board.push(move)
+        nodes += perft(depth - 1, board)
+        board.pop()
+    return nodes
+
+
+def positive_depth(value: str) -> int:
+    """Parse a positive integer depth for argparse."""
+    try:
+        depth = int(value)
+    except ValueError as exc:
+        raise argparse.ArgumentTypeError("depth must be a positive integer") from exc
+
+    if depth < 1:
+        raise argparse.ArgumentTypeError("depth must be at least 1")
+    return depth
+
+
+def clocked_perft(
+    board: chess.Board, max_depth: int
+) -> list[tuple[int, int, float]]:
+    """Return per-depth (depth, node_count, elapsed_seconds) measurements."""
+    results = []
+    for depth in range(1, max_depth + 1):
+        start = time.perf_counter()
+        nodes = perft(depth, board)
+        elapsed = time.perf_counter() - start
+        results.append((depth, nodes, elapsed))
+    return results
+
+
+def main() -> None:
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=__doc__)
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "fen",
+        nargs="?",
+        default=chess.STARTING_FEN,
+        help="FEN of the position (default: start position)",
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "depth",
+        nargs="?",
+        type=positive_depth,
+        default=4,
+        help="maximum depth to measure (default: 4)",
+    )
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+
+    board = chess.Board(args.fen)
+    results = clocked_perft(board, args.depth)
+    is_start_position = args.fen == chess.STARTING_FEN
+
+    total_nodes = 0
+    total_wall_s = 0.0
+    for depth, nodes, elapsed in results:
+        total_nodes += nodes
+        total_wall_s += elapsed
+        nps = nodes / elapsed if elapsed else float("inf")
+        row = (
+            f"depth={depth}  nodes={nodes}  wall_s={elapsed:.6f}  "
+            f"nodes_per_s={nps:.1f}"
+        )
+
+        expected = STARTPOS_PERFT.get(depth) if is_start_position else None
+        if expected is not None:
+            row += f"  reference_nodes={expected}  reference_match={nodes == expected}"
+        print(row)
+
+    total_nps = total_nodes / total_wall_s if total_wall_s else float("inf")
+    print(
+        f"total_nodes={total_nodes}  total_wall_s={total_wall_s:.6f}  "
+        f"total_nodes_per_s={total_nps:.1f}"
+    )
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()