Futuremark Announces PCMark 7 for Windows 7

Looks like we have a new benchmark to look forward to. Like 3DMark 11 before it, they’re keeping any release date under wraps, but they’re teasing us with some art and a fact sheet. Here’s the press release.

PCMark 7 Announced For Windows 7

New Benchmark Includes 7 Suites for Complete PC Performance Analysis

HELSINKI, FINLAND – MARCH 21, 2011 – Futuremark®, the developer of the world’s most popular benchmarking software, announced PCMark® 7 today, a new benchmark offering complete PC performance analysis for Windows 7. PCMark 7 includes 7 separate test suites combining more than 20 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. A release date has not been announced though the official website states that PCMark 7 is coming soon. http://www.pcmark.com/

“Hardware innovations like solid state drives (SSDs), and new form factors such as netbooks and tablets are greatly increasing the range of PC performance available to businesses and home users,” said Jani Joki, Director of PC Products and Services at Futuremark. “With so much choice available, PCMark 7 is an essential and easy to use tool to test and compare PC performance accurately and reliably across a wide range of usage scenarios.”

PCMark 7 provides a set of 7 suites for measuring different aspects of PC performance with a high degree of accuracy. Overall system performance is measured by the PCMark Suite. The Lightweight Suite measures the capabilities of entry level systems and mobility platforms unable to run the full PCMark suite. Common use performance is measured by the Entertainment, Creativity and Productivity scenario suites. Component performance is measured by the Computation and Storage hardware suites. The Storage suite is ideal for testing SSDs and external hard drives in addition to the system drive.

For more information please visit http://www.pcmark.com/ or follow Futuremark on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Futuremark/

Looking at the fact sheet, there are a couple items to note. Of course, this runs only on Windows 7. You’ll also need a fairly modern graphics setup.

Platforms

• PC: Windows 7
• DirectX 9 graphics card required for PCMark score
• DirectX 10 graphics card required for some additional tests
• DirectX 11 graphics card required for some additional tests

Seeing the benchmark suites list, like PCMark Vanage before it, this one looks like it may take a little while to run.

Benchmark Suites

PCMark 7 includes more than 20 individual workloads combined into 7 separate suites to give different views of system performance.

• The PCMark Suite measures overall system performance and returns an official PCMark score.
• The Lightweight Suite measures the capabilities of entry level systems unable to run the full PCMark suite.
• The Entertainment Suite measures system performance in entertainment, media and gaming scenarios.
• The Creativity Suite measures performance in typical creativity scenarios involving images and video.
• The Productivity suite measures system performance scenarios using the Internet and office applications.
• The Computation Suite contains workloads that isolate the computation performance of the system.
• The Storage Suite contains workloads that isolate the performance of the PC’s storage system.

That’s all we know so far. Hopefully this one will have a free version like 3DMark 11 and can eventually be added to the point-granting HWBot benchmarks. We’ll keep you up to date as new info comes along.

– Jeremy Vaughan (hokiealumnus)