Category: Benchmarking

HDXPRT: See how your Windows PC handles real-world media tasks

on May 26, 2022

Many of our blog readers first encountered the XPRTs when reading about a specific benchmark, such as WebXPRT, in a device review. Because these folks might be unfamiliar with our other benchmarks, we like to occasionally “reintroduce” individual XPRTs. This week, we invite you to get to know HDXPRT.

HDXPRT, which stands for High-Definition Experience & Performance Ratings Test, was the first benchmark published by the HDXPRT Development Community, which later became the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. HDXPRT 4, the latest version, evaluates the performance of Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices while handling real-world media tasks such as photo editing, video conversion, and music editing. HDXPRT uses real commercial applications, such Photoshop and MediaEspresso, to complete its workloads. The benchmark then produces easy-to-understand results that are relevant to buyers shopping for new Windows systems.

The HDXPRT 4 setup process takes about 30 minutes on most systems. The length of the test can vary significantly depending on the speed of the system, but for most PCs that are less than a few years old, a full three-iteration test cycle takes under two hours.

HDXPRT is a useful tool for anyone who wants to evaluate the real-world, content-creation capabilities of a Windows PC. To see test scores from a variety of Windows devices, go to HDXPRT.com and click View Results.

Want to run HDXPRT?

Download HDXPRT from HDXPRT.com. The HDXPRT user manual provides information on minimum system requirements, as well as step-by-step instructions for configuring your system and kicking off a test.

Want to dig into the details?

The HDXPRT source code is available upon request. If you’d like to access the source code, please send your request to benchmarkxprtsupport@principledtechnologies.com. Build instructions are also available.

If you haven’t used HDXPRT before, give it a shot and let us know what you think!

Justin

Posted in Adobe Photoshop, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, HDXPRT capabilities, History of benchmarking, MediaEspresso, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11 | Tagged benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, MediaEspresso, Photoshop, WebXPRT, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11 |

Adobe PSE 2020 and HDXPRT 4

By Justin Greene

on May 19, 2022

HDXPRT 4, our benchmark for assessing Windows performance on real-world media tasks, runs tests that use real commercial applications such as Adobe Photoshop Elements (PSE) 2020. Last fall, we informed HDXPRT testers that Adobe had started requiring a user ID to download the free Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020 trial package. Previously, testers could download the trial without setting up an account.

Recently, Adobe made additional changes to the access path for the PSE 2020 installation package. The package is no longer available on the PSE downloads page, but users who previously purchased their copy or registered it with Adobe can access the package on another page. However, this approach does not work for users who want to temporarily use the trial version for HDXPRT 4 testing.

We have found a third-party location, ProDesignTools, that currently offers a free, straightforward PSE 2020 installation package download with no requirements for registration or transmission of personal information. In our testing so far, the installation package (PhotoshopElements_2020_LS30_win64_ESD.zip) has been functioning as expected, and HDXPRT 4 is running the PSE-based workloads without any issues.

Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that ProDesignTools will continue to offer a free PSE 2020 installation package download, and we’re not aware of an alternative Adobe download path at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience!

Justin

Posted in Adobe, benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, Performance benchmarking, Windows | Tagged Adobe, benchmark, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, Photoshop Elements |

XPRTs in the press

By Justin Greene

on May 12, 2022

Each month, we send a newsletter to members of the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community. In the newsletter, we recap the latest updates from the XPRT world and provide a summary of the previous month’s XPRT-related activity, including uses or mentions of the XPRTs in the tech press. More people read the weekly XPRT blog than receive the monthly newsletter, so we realized that some blog readers may be unaware of the wide variety of tech outlets that regularly use or mention the XPRTs.

So for today’s blog, we want to give readers a sampling of the XPRT press usage we see on a weekly basis. Recent mentions include:

Tom’s Guide used HDXPRT 4 to compare the performance of the Geekom Mini IT8 and Dell OptiPlex 7090 Ultra small-form-factor PCs.
Intel used WebXPRT 4 test data in promotional material for their line of 12^th Gen) Intel Core processors(Alder Lake). Hundreds of press outlets then republished the presentation.
AnandTech used WebXPRT 4 to evaluate the Cincoze DS-1300 Industrial PC.
ZDNet used CrXPRT 2 in a review titled The best Chromebooks for students: Student-proof laptops.
PCWorld used CrXPRT 2 to provide data for an article listing their top Chromebook recommendations.
TechPowerUp used WebXPRT 3 to compare the browser performance of Intel Core i9-12900KS processor-based systems and other Intel- and AMD processor-based systems.
Other outlets that have published articles, ads, or reviews mentioning the experts in the last few months include: Android Authority, ASUS, BenchLife, Gadgets 360, Good Gear Guide, Hardware.info, Hot Hardware, ITHardware (Poland), ITMedia (Japan), Itndaily (Russia), Mobile01.com (China), Notebookcheck, PCMag, ProClockers, Sohu.com (China), Tom’s Hardware, and Tweakers.

If you don’t currently receive the monthly BenchmarkXPRT newsletter, but would like to join the mailing list, please let us know! We will not publish or sell any of the contact information you provide, and will only send the monthly newsletter and occasional benchmark-related announcements such as patch notifications or new benchmark releases.

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chromebooks, Cross-platform benchmarks, CrXPRT, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, Performance benchmarking, Performance of computing devices, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, webxprt 4 | Tagged benchmark, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, CrXPRT 2, HDXPRT, HDXPRT 4, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 4, XPRTs |

CrXPRT 2 on FydeOS!

By Justin Greene

on April 28, 2022

Recently, a tester contacted us with details from a CrXPRT 2 performance test run that they’d successfully completed on… an Apple MacBook Pro! Because CrXPRT 2 is a Chrome Web App that we designed for Chrome OS, it was quite a surprise to hear that it is now possible to run CrXPRT 2 on non-Chrome OS platforms by using FydeOS.

FydeOS is an operating system based on a fork of the Chromium OS project. Developers originally intended FydeOS to be a Google-independent, Chrome-like alternative for the Chinese educational market, but FydeOS is now available to the English-speaking consumer and enterprise markets as well. FydeOS users can run a Chrome-like OS on something other than a Chromebook or a Chromebox, such as a PC, Mac, virtual machine, or even a Raspberry Pi device. Additionally, FydeOS supports Android, Chrome OS, and Linux apps, and users can run those apps at the same time on the same screen.

We have not yet conducted any testing with FydeOS in our lab, but we wanted to pass along this information to any readers who may be interested. If the OS operates as described, it may provide a way for us to experiment with using CrXPRT 2 in some interesting cross-platform tests.

Justin

Posted in Android, Apple, benchmark, Benchmarking, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Cross-platform benchmarks, CrXPRT, FydeOS, Google, Google Chrome, Linux, Performance benchmarking, Raspberry Pi | Tagged Android, Apple, Chrome, Chrome OS, cross-platform, CrXPRT, CrXPRT 2, FydeOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi |

A great start for WebXPRT 4!

By Justin Greene

on April 21, 2022

WebXPRT 4 has been available to testers since the end of December, and we’re excited to see that the benchmark is already gaining significant traction in the tech press and testing communities. Several tech publications have already published reviews that feature WebXPRT results, and the number of WebXPRT 4 runs is growing by about fifty percent each month, more than twice the rate of growth for WebXPRT 3 after launch.

As WebXPRT 4 use continues to grow, and more tech publications and OEM labs add WebXPRT 4 to their benchmark suites, we encourage you to keep an eye on the WebXPRT 4 results viewer. The viewer currently has about 120 test results, and we’ll continue to populate the viewer with the latest PT-curated WebXPRT 4 results each week.

You don’t have to be a tech journalist to publish a WebXPRT 4 result, however. We publish any results—including individual user submissions—that meet our evaluation criteria. To submit a result for publication consideration, simply follow the straightforward submission instructions after the test completes. Scores must be consistent with general expectations and must include enough detailed system information that we can determine whether the score makes sense. If you’ve tested with WebXPRT 4 on a new device, or any device or device configuration that’s not already present in the results viewer, we encourage you to send in the result. We want to hear from you!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, Performance benchmarking, results, results submission, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, webxprt 4 |

Using WebXPRT 4 to compare the performance of popular browsers

By Justin Greene

on April 14, 2022

From time to time, we like to run a series of in-house WebXPRT comparison tests to see if recent updates have changed the performance rankings of popular web browsers. We published our most recent comparison last October, when we used WebXPRT 3 to compare Windows 10 and Windows 11 browser performance on the same system. Now that WebXPRT 4 is live, it’s time to update our comparison series with the newest member of the XPRT family.

For this round of tests, we used a Dell XPS 13 7930, which features an Intel Core i3-10110U processor and 4 GB of RAM, running Windows 11 Home updated to version 21H2 (22000.593). We installed all current Windows updates and tested on a clean system image. After the update process completed, we turned off updates to prevent them from interfering with test runs. We ran WebXPRT 4 three times each across five browsers: Brave, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. The posted score for each browser is the median of the three test runs.

In our previous round of tests with WebXPRT 3, Google Chrome narrowly beat out Firefox in Windows 10 and Windows 11 testing, but the scores among three of the Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, and Opera) were close enough that most users performing common daily tasks would be unlikely to notice a difference. Brave performance lagged by about 7 percent, a difference that may be noticeable to most users. This time, when testing updated versions of the browsers with WebXPRT 4 on Windows 11, the rankings changed. Edge was the clear winner, with a 2.2 percent performance advantage over Chrome. Firefox came in last, about 3 percent slower than Opera, which was in the middle of the pack. Performance from Brave improved to the point that it was no longer lagging the other Chromium-based browsers.

Do these results mean that Microsoft Edge will always provide you with a speedier web experience? A device with a higher WebXPRT score will probably feel faster during daily use than one with a lower score. For comparisons on the same system, however, the answer depends in part on the types of things you do on the web, how the extensions you’ve installed affect performance, how frequently the browsers issue updates and incorporate new web technologies, and how accurately each browser’s default installation settings reflect how you would set up that browser for your daily workflow.

In addition, browser speed can increase or decrease significantly after an update, only to swing back in the other direction shortly thereafter. OS-specific optimizations can also affect performance, such as with Edge on Windows 11 and Chrome on Chrome OS. All these variables are important to keep in mind when considering how WebXPRT results translate to your everyday experience.

Do you have insights you’d like to share from using WebXPRT to compare browser performance? Let us know!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Brave, Browser-based benchmarks, Chromium, Cross-platform benchmarks, Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla, Opera, Performance benchmarking, results, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, webxprt 4 | Tagged Brave, browser, browser benchmark, browser performance, Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, WebXPRT 4 |

Category: Benchmarking

HDXPRT: See how your Windows PC handles real-world media tasks

Want to run HDXPRT?

Want to dig into the details?

Adobe PSE 2020 and HDXPRT 4

XPRTs in the press

CrXPRT 2 on FydeOS!

A great start for WebXPRT 4!

Using WebXPRT 4 to compare the performance of popular browsers

Check out the other XPRTs: