Futuremark Updates PCMark 8 to Version 2.0, Refines and Adds New Workloads

Futuremark has given some major love to its PCMark 8 benchmarking suite, issuing one of the biggest updates I’ve ever seen hit one of its products. A number of workloads have been added to Home, Creative, and Work suites, while Storage has also gained some functionality for the Professional edition. Aside from the new workloads, some previous ones have been tweaked, in some cases replacing a few of the applications with open-source variants. 

Because of these major changes, the 2.0 results are not comparable with earlier versions. But, you’re not out of luck if you need to continue with the older version; a compatibility mode has been added for just that purpose.

A full list of changes is as follows:

Home benchmark

• Home updated to version 3.0. Scores should not be compared with previous versions.
• New Photo Editing test using the open source ImageMagick library and a wider variety of image processing operations.
• Video Chat test now features improved face detection and performance. The test has been updated to use OpenCV 2.4.7.

Creative benchmark

• Creative updated to version 3.0. Scores should not be compared with previous versions.
• Photo Editing test using the open source ImageMagick library and a wider variety of image processing operations.
• Video Editing part 2 now uses source material in 4K UHD resolution (3840×2160).
• Video Group Chat test now features improved face detection and performance. The test has been updated to use OpenCV 2.4.7.

Work benchmark

• Work updated to version 2.0. Scores should not be compared with previous versions.
• Work version 2.0 adds a new Spreadsheet test and includes the Video Chat test to provide more varied and representative workloads for office and enterprise use.
• New Spreadsheet test using LibreOffice Calc, a part of the open-source productivity suite from The Document Foundation.
• Added Video Chat test to the benchmark.

Storage benchmark

• Storage updated to version 1.1. Scores are comparable with previous versions.
• Added Expanded Storage tests for specialist analysis of drive performance, (PCMark 8 Professional Edition only).

Compatibility Mode

• Compatibility Mode enables you to run the Home, Creative and Work benchmarks from version 1.2.157 for instances when you need to compare scores against historical result data, (PCMark 8 Professional and Advanced Editions only).

The Steam version of PCMark 8 will update automatically; standalone users can grab their update from the usual mirrors at the product page.