Futuremark Announces PCMark 7 Benchmark for Windows 7 Systems

Getting tired of running the same benchmarks and staring at the same screens every time you upgrade a component or build a new system? Futuremark feels your pain and just moments ago announced PCMark 7, the latest version of its PC performance analysis software. PCMark 7 is intended for Windows 7 platforms equipped with at least a DirectX 9 graphics card.

According to Futuremark's PCMark 7 fact sheet, the updated benchmark will include 20 individual workloads and 7 separate suites to give users a multi-pronged analysis of system performance. Some of the highlights include:

• The PCMark Suite measures overall system performance and returns and 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 system performance in typical creativity scenarios involving images and video.
• The Productivity Suite measures system performance in scenarios using the Internet and office applicatons.
• 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.

"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."


Sounds super groovy, but when is it coming out? Futuremark isn't ready to say, only committing to a "coming soon" release. We look forward to adding this one to our stable of benchmarks.