Dell Latitude E6430S Business Grade Laptop

Next up are some Futuremark benchmarks, which test the laptop in situations that simulate real-life usage. PC Mark 7 covers computing applications that you’re likely to run on an average day for personal or business use, while 3DMark 11 runs the system through graphics-intensive game demos.

Futuremark PCMark 7 Simulated Application Performance

Until recently, we’ve used the venerable PCMark Vantage benchmark for simulated application usage testing. Futuremark’s new PCMark 7 is better-suited to testing modern PCs, so we ran it on the Dell Latitude E6430S. We’re in the process of building our database of systems on PCMark7, so we don’t have similar, business calss laptop scores yet. However, we can get a feel for the laptop’s performance by comparing it to high-end ultrabooks that we’ve recently reviewed.

The E6430S again produced a solid, but not shocking score. It has more firepower than most ultrabooks, from the perspective of PCMark 7. Keep in mind that the benchmark tests the laptop’s ability to run several kinds of office applications.

Futuremark 3DMark 11 Simulated Application Performance

Futuremark 3DMark11 uses DirectX 11 in its grueling 3D demo runs. As we always do for laptops, we chose the Performance benchmark setting. Heavy-duty gaming PCs are generally run on the Extreme setting.

The E6430S is capable of light gaming and is certainly a better gamer than some ultrabooks. The graphics chops are handy for some business situations, too. On the next page, we’ll take a quick look at how the system actually handles games.