How we test.... PCsComputer Shopper’s PC benchmarks are designed to test how well a PC will cope with the toughest kinds of tasks that you’re likely to throw at them. We don’t run any office application tests, as real-world office usage will never be enough to push a PC to its limits. Instead, our suite of tests includes audio and video encoding, image editing and genuine games. All results are plotted against a reference PC’s benchmark scores, so you can see immediately how they stack up against this ’average’ PC: an Evesham Athlon 3500+ system. Scores in the Computer Shopper Application Benchmarks are actual percentages of the reference performance, so a PC scoring 200 there is twice as fast. TESTS
Computer Shopper
SETTINGS: 1,280x1,024 resolution, 32-bit colour
  WHAT IT DOES: When we developed our Windows benchmarks we had two goals. First, we wanted to run really taxing scripts. Today’s PCs have no problem running office applications such as Word and Excel, so we focussed our tests on areas where you could have difficulties. In version 2.0 there are four scripts. Encoding a short video to MPEG2 format is an extremely processor-intensive task, and one that anyone transferring home videos to DVD will have to tackle. Our image-editing test runs a session of photo enhancement using Paint Shop Pro X, culminating with the composition of a panorama from a set of digital snaps. Next, a set of MP3s is generated by ripping a series of WAV files. Finally, we wanted to be able to test multitasking performance, which today’s dual-core processors are supposed to excel at. In our multi-task test we set the PC compressing a DVD video file to WMV format, then our image-editing test springs to life. Our second design goal was enhanced accuracy and reproducibility, which helps make our benchmark scores the most dependable on the newsstand.
PCMark04
SETTINGS: 1,280x1,024 resolution, 32-bit colour, default settings DOWNLOAD: http://www.futuremark.com/download/?pcmark04.shtm WHAT IT DOES: PCMark’s suite of tests analyses and tests every aspect of your PC’s general Windows performance. Its tests are particularly useful for discovering which components are the slowest. One of the main reasons that we run this benchmark is that you can download your own copy from www.futuremark.com and test your existing PC to see how it compares. Doom 3
SETTINGS: 1,280x1,024 resolution, high quality, 4x FSAA
WHAT IT DOES: Doom 3 is one of the most visually stunning games on the market and perfect for testing graphical performance. The engine uses OpenGL, so it’s a good indication of how any game using this technology will perform. While Doom 3 has a built-in demo, we didn’t feel this pushed graphics cards far enough, so we recorded our own demo which contains more outdoor scenes. To test a graphics card’s performance Doom 3 plays our demo back as fast as it can. The number of frames in the demo divided by the time it took to play it gives us a score in frames per second. You can run our time demo on your home PC if you have a copy of Doom 3. In Windows Explorer open your Doom 3 directory, open the base folder and create a new folder called demos. Download our test file to this folder. Start Doom 3 and set it to the settings above and press CTRL+ALT+¬ (key to the left of ’1’). Type timedemo timedemo1 and press Return. The first test is jerky, while Doom 3 caches texture data, so run the test a second time to get the true performance figure.
Call of Duty 2 version 1.01
SETTINGS: 1,280x1,024 resolution, 4x AA, Anisotropic Filtering, Shadows: Yes, Number of Dynamic Lights: Normal, Soften Smoke Edges: World Only, Number of Corpses: Medium, Texture Settings all set to Extra
WHAT IT DOES: Call of Duty 2 uses DirectX and is one of the most demanding games available. With a wide range of effects and frenetic action, it tests every aspect of a graphics card’s performance. You can run a copy of our time demo on your home PC if you have a copy of Call of Duty 2. In Windows Explorer navigate to your Call of Duty 2 folder and open the main folder. Create a new folder called demos. Download our test file to this folder. Start Call of Duty 2 and click on the Options menu, select Game Options and enable the Game Console. Press the ¬ key (to the left of the 1) and type timedemo timedemo1. When the demo has finished press SHIFT+¬ to see your PC’s score.
Reference System
Evesham Axis 35/939
Shopper Application Benchmarks: 100
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