General Performance and Battery Life

PCMark 10 offers a look into general computing performance, replacing the venerable PCMark 8. The newer version now leverages the graphics processor by default, compared to the separately conducted conventional and accelerated tests of the older release.

SPECviewperf 13 is used to verify graphical performance in a variety of professional workloads.

Battery life is tested in a few ways. To start with, I use VLC media player to loop the movie Ted to simulate typical streaming. Next, I use PCMark 10 battery tests to simulate office work and gaming in a controllable environment. Finally, I use Unigine Valley for a secondary look at battery life while gaming.

I also use a kill-a-watt meter to measure power consumption during various tests, including idle, VLC, Cinebench R20, and Battlefield 5.

PCMark 10

SPECviewperf13

Battery Life and Power Consumption