Benchmarking Performance: CPU Office Tests

The office programs we use for benchmarking aren't specific programs per-se, but industry standard tests that hold weight with professionals. The goal of these tests is to use an array of software and techniques that a typical office user might encounter, such as video conferencing, document editing, architectural modeling, and so on and so forth.

All of our benchmark results can also be found in our benchmark engine, Bench.

Chromium Compile (v56)

Our new compilation test uses Windows 10 Pro, VS Community 2015.3 with the Win10 SDK to compile a nightly build of Chromium. We've fixed the test for a build in late March 2017, and we run a fresh full compile in our test. Compilation is the typical example given of a variable threaded workload - some of the compile and linking is linear, whereas other parts are multithreaded.

Office: Chromium Compile (v56)

For our compile test, it would appear that the extra memory width afforded by the quad-channel memory of Skylake-X can have a direct benefit in compile performance.

PCMark 10

PCMark 10 is the 2017 update to the family favorite, PCMark 8. PCMark 8 has been part of our test bed since the latest update in Q1. For the most part it runs well, although for some processors it doesn’t recognize, some tests will not complete, leading to holes in our benchmark data (there’s also an odd directory quirk in one test that causes issues). The newest version, PCMark 10, is the answer.

The new test is adapted for more 2016/2017 workflows. With the advent of office applications that perform deeper compute tasks, or the wave of online gamers and streamers, the idea behind PCMark 10 is to give a better ‘single number’ result that can provide a comparable metric between systems. Single metrics never tell the whole story, so we’re glad that Futuremark provides a very detailed breakdown of what goes on.

Ganesh’s article on PCMark 10 goes into more detail than I will here, but the ‘Extended Benchmark’ runs through four different sets of tests: Essential, Productivity, Creation and Gaming. Each of these have sub-test results as well, including startup performance, web performance, video conferencing, photo/video editing, spreadsheets, rendering, and physics, which you can find in Bench.

Office: PCMark10-1 Essential Set ScoreOffice: PCMark10-2 Productivity Set ScoreOffice: PCMark10-3 Creation Set ScoreOffice: PCMark10-4 Physics Score

PCMark8: link

Despite originally coming out in 2008/2009, Futuremark has maintained PCMark8 to remain relevant in 2017. On the scale of complicated tasks, PCMark focuses more on the low-to-mid range of professional workloads, making it a good indicator for what people consider 'office' work. We run the benchmark from the commandline in 'conventional' mode, meaning C++ over OpenCL, to remove the graphics card from the equation and focus purely on the CPU. PCMark8 offers Home, Work and Creative workloads, with some software tests shared and others unique to each benchmark set.

Office: PCMark8 Creative (non-OpenCL)Office: PCMark8 Home (non-OpenCL)Office: PCMark8 Work (non-OpenCL)

Benchmarking Performance: CPU Encoding Tests Benchmarking Performance: CPU Legacy Tests
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  • mapesdhs - Monday, October 9, 2017 - link

    GN did a great video on this, it's certainly complicated.
  • crimson117 - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link

    Will the included heatsink / cooler be viable on the i7-8700? Or would you still need to buy an aftermarket cooler?
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link

    Typo page 7 (Civ AI):
    "an asymptotic result wken you"
    "wken"
  • jimjamjamie - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link

    RIP hyperthreading for anything under $300...
  • Anonymous Blowhard - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link

    Buy AMD.
  • mapesdhs - Tuesday, October 10, 2017 - link

    Or a used Intel, sooo much value. I'd been looking for a 4930K upgrade for an X79 system (over a 3930K), so as to provide proper PCIe 3.0, etc., main focus is animation, rendering and video processing; gave up, bought a 10-core (20 thread) XEON E5-2680 v2 instead for 165 UKP (very easy to find). It scores 15.44 for CB 11.5, and 1381 for CB R15 (these tests force an all-core Turbo of 3.1GHz), compare these to the 8700K numbers, not bad at all for a board as old as X79, and the temps/power/heat/etc. are excellent.
  • AndrewJacksonZA - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link

    Thank you very much for your efforts, ladies and gentlemen, this was a really informative review and I enjoyed reading it. :-)
  • sonichedgehog360@yahoo.com - Thursday, October 5, 2017 - link

    Here is a more accurate TDP test:

    https://img.purch.com/image001-png/w/711/aHR0cDovL...
  • bongey - Friday, October 6, 2017 - link

    Quiet now, Anandtech only publishes what Intel tells them to publish.
  • Ian Cutress - Saturday, October 7, 2017 - link

    Last week I was being called an AMD shill. Before that, an Intel shill, Before that, an AMD shill. Swings, roundabouts, hedges.

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