Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook Review


PCMark 7 and 8

Over the years, Futuremark has made a name for itself with comprehensive benchmarks that provide consistent results for comparing granular and big-picture performance. We put the Acer Aspire S7 through PCMark 7, which has been around for a while, and PCMark 8, which is the latest benchmark in the series. With PCMark 7 we've provided overall scores, while PCMark 8 tests are broken out into three key modules.

Futuremark PCMark 7
Simulated Application Performance
 
PCMark 7
PCMark 7 runs through the types of tasks your ultrabook is likely to encounter during ordinary home and office use. It tests the system’s graphics capabilities as part of the process, but you should think of PCMark 7 as an indicator of system’s general usage performance. We’ll get to the gaming-oriented benchmarks on the next page.  



The Aspire S7 has all the right hardware to score well in a general usage benchmark, and it does. The striped SSDs likely helped quite a bit, putting the S7 near the top of the pack. Still, processor speed is important to PCMark 7, so the KIRAbook’s Core i7-3537U helps it out here.

Futuremark PCMark 8
Simulated Application Performance

PCMark 8
 
Futuremark recently launched PCMark 8, which has several separate benchmarks. The Home test measures a system's ability to handle basic tasks: video chatting, web browsing, photo editing, and similar day-to-day activities. The test is designed to be run on just about any Windows 7 or 8 computer. The Creative test offers some of the same types of tasks, but puts more stress on the system and is meant for mid-range and higher-end systems. The Work test simulates the workflow of a typical office user. And the Storage test - you guessed it - benchmark's your system’s data storage performance. 



The Acer Aspire S7 manages to edge out even the similarly-configured Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro in this benchmark. And, it's strong performer in the Work test, coming closer to Core i7 laptop's score than any of the other ultrabooks.


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