PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click

simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press

and enthusiasts.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer performance across a variety of common tasks

such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications,

productivity and security.

From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark

Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software

bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.


PCMark Vantage features
PCMark Vantage measures the performance of the latest PC hardware across a variety of

common scenarios. PCMark Vantage supports both system level and component level

benchmarking and comprises several different test suites. Please refer to the PCMark

Vantage whitepaper and PCMark Vantage Help for more detailed information about the tests

below.

PCMark Suite
The PCMark Suite is a collection of various tests designed to represent common everyday

PC usage. The PCMark score is the direct result of the PCMark Suite test.

PCMark Consumer Scenarios
Digital Memories 1 & 2
TV and Movies 1 & 2
Gaming 1 & 2
Music 1 & 2
Communication 1 & 2
Productivity 1 & 2


CPU Tests
Data encryption, decryption, compression and decompression
CPU image manipulation (compression / decompression / resize / flipping)
Audio transcoding
Video transcoding
Text editing
Web page rendering
Windows Mail
Windows Contacts
CPU game test


Graphics Tests
Video playback
GPU game test


HDD Tests
6 seperate HDD tests


Advanced and Professional test suites
PCMark Vantage Advanced and Professional Editions include additional test suites covering

consumer scenarios such as digital photography and video, HDTV and movies, gaming, music,

communications and productivity performance as well as specific storage system tests.

Memories Suite measures the system's performance when handling digital photos and video.
The TV and Movies Suite measures performance when transcoding and displaying TV and

movies.
Gaming Suite measures the system's ability to run the latest games.
Music Suite measures performance when working with music files.
Communications Suite measures the system's performance in various communication

scenarios.
Productivity Suite measures performance when running common productivity software.
HDD Suite measures the system's storage performance.


PCMark Vantage online services
The Online Results Browser, or ORB for short, is an essential part of the PCMark Vantage

experience. The ORB lets you make performance comparisons between your PC and other

similar systems by searching through over 20 million results.

From the ORB comparison graphs, you can easily see how your PC's performance could be

improved by upgrading to a faster processor, adding memory or installing a more powerful

graphics card for example.