PCMark 10

The need to know how well your computer performs is only natural, especially if it’s after an upgrade. While benchmarks don’t often tell the whole story, they’re still the most immediate and verifiable way that can measure a system’s performance.

Most modern computers should have no trouble tackling office work. Some are better than others, sure, but as programs get more demanding, so too does the load on your system. PCMark 10 is an important name in the benchmarking industry, offering a series of tests that can reveal a machine’s performance across a series of office-related tasks.

First off, it should be noted that the benchmark can take some time. That’s not a bad thing, as sustained workloads are often where many computers falter due to throttling, among other things. When you decide to run the benchmark, make some time for yourself and leave your machine until completion, which took about 15 to 20 minutes in my case.

The benchmark will test how your computer manages starting up and working with various applications, its performance when surfing the web, as well as its video conferencing stability.

Aside from the usual office-related work, such as creating and editing documents, spreadsheets, and so on, the program also assesses your machine’s digital content creation capabilities. As in, its performance when dealing with various photo editing and video rendering workflows.

The post-benchmark screen will greet you with a detailed breakdown of your computer’s performance across the listed tasks. While the scores themselves may not mean much without a baseline at first, the 3DMark online database addresses that by comparing your results to others.

This makes it markedly easy to get a feel for how your computer truly performs, as the baselines for different machines give your scores meaning, such that I found my laptop underperforming when compared to a 2023 office laptop.

PCMark 10 is very simple to use. Click Run, wait for the results, and hope for the best. Comparing your scores with other machines through the developer’s online database gives users a more tangible image of their computer’s performance.