Introduction
Almost all makers of PC
hardware and software are united in one belief. They see their future
prosperity being dependent on the world and its dog buying large
numbers of home computers with sophisticated and exciting multi-media
capabilities of the sort that make the term 'digital home' so widely
bandied about today.
However, if we do all buy into the idea, what we may find difficult is
deciding which specific PC best meets our needs. There are many varied
digital-home tasks that we'll want to carry out, including the playback
- and around-the-house streaming - of video at varying resolutions
right up to high-def.
Intel is one of the big backers of the whole digital-home idea and has
come to believe that system builders and professional
reviewers require ways of carrying out whole-body testing of PC systems
that accurately assess their overall and differing
multi-media/digital-home capabilities.
This has led the company to develop the Intel Digital Home Capabilities
Assessment Tool (IDHCAT) – the benchmarking suite that this
preview is considering.
Elements that the IDHCAT tests
Note, however, that our testing of the V1.0 Evaluation release of the
suite was somewhat hamstrung by the fact that Intel had
designed it primarily for use in the USA and appeared to have forgotten
that this would prevent the thorough testing of PCs made for other
markets, including the UK. D'oh!
At a recent briefing by the company, its representatives met
with much cynicism about the IDHCAT. Not least was the
accusation that an Intel-created testing program might have
a bias against PCs built around CPUs from other
makers. The obvious target are CPUs from AMD - Intel's biggest rival
(though still a tiddler in comparison). Significantly, in recent times,
AMD CPUs have consistently outperformed Intel's in most tests, including
those concerning multi-media capabilities.
Acknowledging this concern, Intel said that although this was an
understandable fear, it was actually without foundation. Even so, we
were told, the company's aim wasn't so much to create the definitive
tool for benchmarking digital-home PC's but to show how seriously it
took the need for such tools. This very act of creation, it expects,
will help catalyse the development of comparable – and quite
possibly better – testing programs by independent firms that
make benchmarking software for a living.
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