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

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
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 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Adobe PSE 2020 and HDXPRT 4

Justin Greene
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 | Also tagged , , ,

XPRTs in the press

Justin Greene
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 12th 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 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Chrome OS support for CrXPRT apps ends in June 2022

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on March 24, 2022

Last March, we discussed the Chrome OS team’s original announcement that they would be phasing out support for Chrome Apps altogether in June 2021, and would shift their focus to Chrome extensions and Progressive Web Apps. The Chrome OS team eventually extended support for existing Chrome Apps through June 2022, but as of this week, we see no indication that they will further extend support for Chrome Apps published with general developer accounts. If the end-of-life schedule for Chrome Apps does not change in the next few months, both CrXPRT 2 and CrXPRT 2015 will stop working on new versions of Chrome OS at some point in June.

To maintain CrXPRT functionality past June, we would need to rebuild the app completely—either as a Progressive Web App or in some other form. For this reason, we want to reassess our approach to Chrome OS testing, and investigate which features and technologies to include in a new Chrome OS benchmark. Our current goal is to gather feedback and conduct exploratory research over the next few months, and begin developing an all-new Chrome OS benchmark for publication by the end of the year.

While we will discuss ideas for this new Chrome OS benchmark in future blog posts, we welcome ideas from CrXPRT users now. What features or workloads would you like the new benchmark to retain? Would you like us to remove any components from the existing benchmark? Does the battery life test in its current form suit your needs? If you have any thoughts about these questions or any other aspects of Chrome OS benchmarking, please let us know!

Justin

Posted in Battery life, battery life, benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Chromium, Collaborative benchmark development, CrXPRT, Google Chrome, Performance benchmarking, What makes a good benchmark? | Also tagged , , , , , , , ,

WebXPRT 4 is live!

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on February 28, 2022

We’re excited to announce that WebXPRT 4 is now available! Testers can access the benchmark at WebXPRT.com. If you’ve already been using the WebXPRT 4 Preview, your Preview test results will be comparable with results from the current official build.

Longtime WebXPRT users will notice that WebXPRT 4 has a new, but familiar, UI. The general process for kicking off both manual and automated tests is the same as with WebXPRT 3, so the transition from WebXPRT 3 to WebXPRT 4 testing should be straightforward. We will continue to make WebXPRT 3 available for legacy testing.

If you missed earlier XPRT blog posts about WebXPRT 4, here is a quick overview of the differences between WebXPRT 3 and WebXPRT 4:

General changes

  • We’ve updated the aesthetics of the WebXPRT UI to make WebXPRT 4 visually distinct from older versions. We did not significantly change the flow of the UI.
  • We’ve updated content in some of the workloads to reflect changes in everyday technology, such as upgrading most of the photos in the photo processing workloads to higher resolutions.
  • We’ve updated the base calibration system for score calculations, and adjusted the scoring scale. WebXPRT 4 scores should not be compared to scores from previous versions of WebXPRT.

Workload changes

  • Photo Enhancement. We increased the efficiency of the workload’s Canvas object creation function, and replaced the existing photos with new, higher-resolution photos.
  • Organize Album Using AI. We replaced ConvNetJS with WebAssembly (WASM) based OpenCV.js for both the face detection and image classification tasks. We changed the images for the image classification tasks to images from the ImageNet dataset.
  • Stock Option Pricing. We updated the dygraph.js library.
  • Sales Graphs. We made no changes to this workload.
  • Encrypt Notes and OCR Scan. We replaced ASM.js with WASM for the Notes task and updated the WASM-based Tesseract version for the OCR task.
  • Online Homework. In addition to the existing scenario which uses four Web Workers, we have added a scenario with two Web Workers. The workload now covers a wider range of Web Worker performance, and we calculate the score by using the combined run time of both scenarios. We also updated the typo.js library.

We’re thankful for all of the feedback we received during the WebXPRT 4 development process, and we look forward to seeing your WebXPRT 4 results!

Justin

Posted in benchmark, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, Browser-based benchmarks, Cross-platform benchmarks, Performance benchmarking, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 3, webxprt 4 | Also tagged , , , , ,

Updated system configuration recommendations for CrXPRT 2 battery life tests

Justin Greene
By Justin Greene
on February 3, 2022

Recently, we heard from a BenchmarkXPRT Development Community member who was testing Chromebooks in their lab. On a few of the Chromebooks, they saw sporadic CrXPRT 2 battery life test failures where CrXPRT 2 would successfully complete a battery life test and produce a result for the initial run, but then fail at the end of later runs.

After a considerable amount of troubleshooting, they determined that the issue seemed to be related to the way some systems automatically shut down before the battery is completely exhausted, and the way some systems will automatically boot up once the tester plugs in the power adapter for charging. This member found that when they added a few system configuration steps before battery life tests and made slight changes to their post-test routine, the systems that had previously experienced consistent failures would successfully complete battery life tests and produce results.

The added steps are quick and straightforward, and we decided to add them to the Configuring the test device and Running the tests sections of the CrXPRT 2 user manual. We hope this updated guidance will help to prevent future frustration for CrXPRT 2 testers.

If you have any questions or comments about the CrXPRT 2 battery life test, please feel free to contact us!

Justin

Posted in battery life, benchmark, Benchmark metrics, Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Google Chrome | Also tagged , , , , , , ,

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