2014 Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook With Touch Review

Futuremark’s PCMark 7 is a well-known benchmark tool that runs the system through ordinary computing tasks, including word processing and multimedia playback and editing. Graphics and processor power figure prominently in this benchmark, but graphics throughput doesn’t play as big a role here as it does in another Futuremark benchmark, 3DMark (which is designed for testing the system’s gaming capabilities). This test also weighs heavily on the performance of the storage subsystem of a given device.

Futuremark PCMark 7 Simulated Application Performance

Dell’s XPS 13 once again earns the top spot in the PCMark 7 benchmark, showing this is a system that is speedy and capable of various very day computing tasks.

Futuremark PCMark 8 v.2 Trace-based Workload Testing

Futuremark recently launched PCMark 8, which has several built-in benchmark tests. The Home test measures a system's ability to handle basic tasks such as web browsing, writing, gaming, photo editing, and video chat. The Creative test offers similar types of tasks, but has more demanding requirements than the Home benchmark and is meant for mid-range and higher-end PCs. The Work test measures the performance of typical office PC systems that lack media capabilities. Finally, the Storage benchmark tests the performance of SSDs, HDDs and hybrid drives with traces recorded from Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and a selection of popular games.

This test was a little harder on the XPS 13 than the other benchmarks we’ve seen so far. Still, the XPS 13 posted respectable scores, coming in second in the Work Accelerated test and third in the Home Accelerated test. Even though it earned fourth place, respectively, in the Storage test, keep in mind the margin between scores in the storage test is very small and likely even within the margin of error and repeatability for the workload.