Installation of PCMark04 was very simple and straightforward. We found no concerns in our various installs, if you’ve ever installed a Futuremark product in the past (and lets face it who hasn’t!) then this will be familiar. Once installed you are presented with a program interface which is quite similar to 3DMark03:

On the left there you have a breakdown of the tests you have selected. Clicking “Select” in this section opens a window which shows the tests you are going to run:

And clicking Advanced allows you to further specify your custom tests:

As you can see from the above screenshots the test setup process is extremely simple, well layed out and intuitive.

Back to the main program screen and the middle column shows a few specifics about your system:

Clicking details opens an IE window with various specifics on your system…here is an example:

The output can be arranged into various levels of detail using the options at the top of the window.
Overall a useful, if not unessential function.

The final column is the results column:

Here you see a breakdown of the last test that was run. By clicking options you are presented with the following menu:

Online ResultBrowser - allows you to upload your project to the ORB for comparison.
Save As - allows you to save the project for use at a later date.
To Excel - exports the results of your project to an excel file.
Details - opens a window which allows you to see a text breakdown of your scores, or the individual tests:

Again, as with the test setup the results section is extremely clear and easy to use. One of the most useful sections in our opinion was the ability to export to excel, not only does this allow easy handling of the data it is also very in depth, going so far as to tell you the speed of your ram.

 

Next: Breakdown of the tests in Pcmark2004