System & Laptop
Benchmarks
Laptops
The End Goal
NOTEBOOKS AND LAPTOPS present
a particularly interesting challenge.
The difference in performance levels
when comparing a $2,000 Ultrabook
to a gaming notebook can be night and
day: One is designed to function as a
lightweight portable office PC, whereas
the other has more in common with a
full-fledged desktop. Combine that with
the myriad form factors affecting the
amount of space manufacturers have to
include cooling and hardware, and picking
a standard set of zero-points for laptop
reviews becomes increasingly difficult.
To get around this, we’ve decided to
choose four separate laptops to act as
our zero-points, with two separate sets
of system benchmarks (although more
on that later). Two of these will be gaming
notebooks, and two of them ultrabooks,
with each series featuring one product
at $1,000, and the other $1,800. We’ll be
running the following:
ULTRABOOKS
- Acer Swift 5 14-inch $1,000
- HP Spectre x360 13-inch $1,800
GAMING NOTEBOOKS - Acer Nitro 7 15.6-inch $1,000
- Alienware M15 R1 15.6-inch $1,800
LAST BUT BY NO MEANS LEAST, we
have our system and laptop benchmarks.
Following a similar line to our laptop
zero-point logic above, we’re now going
to include two sets of separate system
benchmarks, dependent on whether
the system built is aimed at workstation
tasks or gaming. These are effectively an
amalgamation of all of the benchmarks
we’ve mentioned before for CPUs, GPUs,
and motherboards, with a few slight
tweaks to the laptop benchmarking
process compared to the systems, purely
based on form factor limitations, and what
you’ll likely be doing with these devices.
THIS IS quite an extensive remodel for
our testing methodology. Not only does
it expand on what sort of tests we were
doing prior to this, but it also should help
to give you and us a lot more insight into
how well these products function.
However, we’re not just stopping
there, and we absolutely understand the
limitations of our print magazine when
it comes to finding old content. So what
we’re going to do is provide you with a
handy little URL here: https://bit.ly/MPC-
BMDB. This is going to be Maximum PC’s
Public Benchmark Database.
Not only will you find all of the
benchmark results from every zero-
point, system, and product we’ve tested
going forward, but you’ll also find our
complete testing methodologies as well,
so you can run these same tests on your
own systems at home, in exactly the same
manner that we do here. Of course, we’llstill have our own internal databases for
NDA’d product launches and releases, but
as soon as the magazine goes on sale, the
latest benchmark results from that issue
will be added to the database for your
own reference.
So what’s the catch? Well this is going
to be a work in progress for some time.
We’re sadly still writing this during our
own company’s lockdown, and with
limited office access. We hope to be back
in the office with all of our testing capacity
ready for by the time you’re reading our
November and December issues.Our gaming laptop zero-point is the ............GAMING LAPTOP BENCHMARKS
ZERO-
POINT
CineBench R20 Single (Index) 00 000 (00%)
CineBench R20 Multi (Index) 00 000 (000%)
CrystalDiskMark 7.0 Sequential
Read QD8 M.2 (MB/s)^0000 (-00%)
3DMark: Fire Strike (Index) 00 000 (00%)
3DMark: Port Royal Ray
Tracing (Index)^00 00 (0%)
Total War: Three Kingdoms (fps) 00 00 (-00%)
Assassins Creed Odyssey (fps) 00 00 (-00%)
Metro Exodus (fps) 00 000 (000%)
Red Dead Redemption II (fps) 00 00 (-00%)
PCMark 10 - Applications
Benchmark (Index)^00 000 (000%)
PCMark 10 - Battery Life (h:m:s) 0:0:0 000 (000%)
Max CPU Temp Fire Strike
Combined (Load) (C)^00 00 (-00%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%ULTRABOOK BENCHMARKS
ZERO-
POINT
CineBench R20 Single (Index) 00 000 (00%)
CineBench R20 Multi (Undex) 00 000 (000%)
HWBOT X265 @ 4K (fps) 00 00 (-00%)
AIDA64 Memory
Bandwidth (MB/s)^00 000 (00%)
CrystalDiskMark 7.0 Sequential
Read QD8 M.2 (MB/s)^00 00 (0%)
CrystalDiskMark 7.0 Sequential
Read QD8 M.2 (MB/s)^0000 (-00%)
3DMark: Fire Strike (Index) 00 00 (-00%)
Adobe Premiere Pro
Benchmark @ 4K (m:s) 0:0 000 (000%)
Adobe After Effects
Benchmark @ 4K (m:s) 0:0^00 (-00%)
PCMark 10 - Applications
Benchmark (Index)^00 000 (000%)
PCMark 10 - Battery Life (h:m:s) 0:0:0 000 (000%)
Max CPU Temp Fire Strike
Combined (Load) (C)^00 00 (-00%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Our gaming laptop zero-point is the ............maximumpc.com SEP 2020 MAXIMUM PC 33
BENCHMARK YOUR SSD PG.50