More Accurately Benchmarking the End-User PC Experience

To benchmark the end-user PC experience, Intel IT uses tools that clarify PC power consumption and applications’ effect on battery life. This helps us optimize the IT build and answer one of the most common questions we receive from users: “Why doesn’t my corporate laptop battery last as long as my laptop at home?”

We know employees want to be as productive as possible, and battery life is crucial to Intel’s highly mobile workforce. On the other hand, our IT build includes several components that help keep Intel’s data and intellectual property safe. Necessarily, these additional software components consume their fair share of power. To fully understand what users are experiencing with their laptops—as well as how the Intel IT build introduces power consumption overhead—we rigorously benchmark the corporate PC experience.

In collaboration with Intel’s Client Computing group, we recently overhauled our PC experience benchmarking methodology and toolset. We adopted new benchmarking tools that more accurately represent the applications that Intel employees use. We also now use the Intel® Battery Life Diagnostic Tool (Intel® BLDT) to identify specific background processes and applications that are responsible for excessive power consumption.

We use these tools to reduce power consumption rates on users’ PCs and help the Client Computing group drive improvements to client devices and meet customers’ expectations. By sharing our benchmarking approach and results, we hope to encourage other IT departments to take a similar approach.