News European Commission mandates PCMark for PC tenders

Seems like a sensible starting point when purchasing office computers.

 

So no chance of the UK government using something like that then, not known for sensibility is the UK government when it comes to IT.

 

I'm curious to know what the 'minimum standard'/score is...

 

How is that going to work for the ever increasing number of PCs free of x86 / Windows?

 

It shouldnt really matter what OS you're going to use, the idea is that the system is being rated on its abilities for certain criteria, and by using that you'll be able to compare systems more effectively.
If you buy that machine and put a non Windows OS on there, it still should perform the sort of tasks you bought it for, better than the systems with a lower score.

But from what i understand of this, it isnt something that you'll see companies like Dell, H, Alienware, PCWorld or whatever being forced to display their scores, its for tender offers. So when a company is looking for 50 PCs to fill a new building, they'll get offers from these companies and they'll be required to include a score to highlight the systems capabilities.

I think it'd be a good idea from a consumer POV too, personally. Though i'd imagine most of us here buy ours from parts, it still makes sense.

Most people buy things based on the few things they've picked up on, they'd see a CPU speed and how much ram, and thats what they'll base it on. I mate of mine used to buy terrible digital cameras simply because it had a bigger megapixel number, and he'd assume it was great because it was higher than something lower which was twice the price.
Adding a score system for different purposes, can only help inform customers. Ultimately, they need to know what they're buying and adding a score wont solve that.

 

For n00b customers buying PC games from retailers like Game, actually the system worked quite well. The boxed game would often state the minimum number required to play the game - and those consumers who did purchase their machine from PC World (spits) who had no idea what the graphics-doo-dah or see-pee-you-thingy was at least had a simple "my pc gets a 3 and this game needs a 2" comparison to make.

Us lot using Steam/Origin etc who know what we're doing had no use for it, but we are not the majority.

Because IT experts would never lie about what was needed, and from who, and definitely would never, ever take backhanders from suppliers for putting the business their way, right?

Someone with a better knowledge of a thing than someone with no knowledge of a thing always appears to be an expert when many really, really are not.

 

Never really seen the point in PCmark Vantage or 8, it barely stresses anything, most new PC's or laptops should easily be able to perform al those tasks.

 

Sounds like a good idea, it'd be great to use at a consumer level.

Just imagine the average consumer walking around PC world - ok that computer is 3.9, but this one has a rating of 4.9 so it's better and worth the extra money.

 

Well that's nice for Futuremark and the other benchmarking software authors in terms of revenue. How do DIGIT et al justify forcing PC manufacturers to pay a third-party for validation software? It's sensible to mandate a reasonable performance, but there could be suggestions of corruption there. Do any of the people who have made this rule have shares in the companies whose software they require computer manufacturers to use?

 

Forcing? If a manufacturer wants to bid for the government contract to sell them twenty-thousand PCs then they first have to run ONE of their proposed systems through PC Mark to verify the machines performance. Oh noes!

 

It's a good idea. One of the good things about PC Mark is that it places a lot of emphasis on storage, so systems with SSDs always score highly. It should avoid the situation where the manufacturer packs in pricey top-tier CPUs into their systems to sway purchasing decisions, while the computers themselves are slow due to being held back by spinning rust drives.

 

The basic test doesn't touch storage

 

Pretttttttty sure the European Commission will be requiring potential suppliers to run more than the basic test!

 

What is the basic test ? AFAIK PCMark gives an overall score based on the following.