Futuremark, the well known maker of benchmarking software has announced, that PC Mark 8 will be compatible to Windows 8.1. Version 1.1.111 is the actual latest build, which supports Windows 8.1 and Internet Explorer. Apart from that SystemInfo has been updated to Version 4.21.

The latest version of PCMark 8 also features detailed hardware monitoring, quicker SystemInfo scanning and there is also a bunch of new options for OpenCL testing, whereas Home and Creative benchmarks can now also be tested with OpenCL acceleration.

PCMark 8 consists of five different workloads, in order to show the overall performance of todays PCs. First of all there is the Home benchmark, which includes workloads a typical user demands from an everyday PC. Next to that there is the Creative benchmark reflecting usage pattern of advanced home computer users. Then there is the Work benchmark featureing a set of workloads to show office productivity. With the Applications benchmark PCMark 8 is measuring the performance in Adobe's Creative Suite as well as Microsoft Office and last but not least there is the Storage benchmark which takes care of measuring throughput rates as well as IOPS of SSDs, HDDs as well as hybrid drives.

Currently, PCMark 8 is only available as Professional Edition, which costs an eyewatering 1495 US-Dollar. Luckily Futuremak will also release a Basic version, which is free and an Advanced version for 49.95 US-Dollar.

Source: Futuremark