Futuremark launches PCMark04

Futuremark today launched the successor of PCMark2002, the newly released PCMark04 is a benchmarketing tool to compare home PC performance. It features system tests like file compression, decompression, virus scanning, image processing and DivX compression, memory tests like reading and writing from the memory, graphics 2D and 3D tests and hard drive tests. If you wish you can post your scores in our forum.

PCMark04 features both system and component level benchmarking. System level benchmarking produces a measure of the PC’s overall performance. It is a single number that is easily comparable to that of other PCs. However, advanced users and professional testers may want to further explore the performance of individual components such as the CPU, the memory, the graphics subsystem, and the hard disk. Component level benchmarking helps them to isolate the performance of individual components, exposing their strengths and weaknesses. PCMark04 even includes the ability to create custom benchmarks by putting together tests tailored to specific needs. Being an application-based benchmark, PCMark04 incorporates algorithms and application fragments that are most often used by the typical PC user. This allows PCMark04 to be a smaller installation, as well as being easier and faster to run. As far as possible, PCMark04 uses public domain applications whose source code can be freely examined by any user. Download : PC Mark04 (35MB) Key User Benefits of PCMark04: Easy to Use: Easy to use for both novice users, benchmarking professionals, industry vendors and press labs; Complete Benchmarking Cycle: Benchmark a PC, view the resulting benchmark details, compare the results to those of others, and finally analyze how to improve that PC’s performance; System and Component Performance: Expose both overall system performance as well as isolate performance of individual PC components; Integrated Online Result Browser: Instantly compare results to the world’s largest database of performance data with global validation. PCMark04 Test Suites: System Test Suite: Extensive collection of application-based tests that emulate typical home usage; tasks include image, audio, and video processing, 3D game play, web page rendering, virus scanning, file compression and encryption, grammar checking, and graphics memory usage; CPU Test Suite: Includes tests that isolate the performance of the CPU; tasks include image, audio, and video processing, virus scanning, file compression and encryption, and grammar checking; Memory Performance Testing: Tests measure the performance of the memory subsystem; these tasks involve writing, copying and random access to data blocks in the L1 cache, L2 cache, and main memory; Graphics Test Suite: Tests measure both 2D and 3D graphics performance of the PC; 2D tasks are moving windows, windows transparency, graphics memory usage, and video playback; 3D tasks exercise fill rate and polygon throughput capabilities for the graphics subsystem; Hard Disk Drive Test Suite: Using disk activity traces from real-life usage, these tests isolate the performance of the hard disk drive; disk activity measured includes Windows® XP startup, application loading, file copying, and general disk usage.

There is also a Pro version with extra options, for private use it costs $19.95 and for business use $199.95.