PC performance data for retailers

UL Solutions began developing industry-standard computer benchmarks in the 1990s. Since then, our benchmarks have evolved to perform accurate assessments of PCs and Macs as well as notebooks, tablets and smartphones. Millions of people around the world trust our benchmarks; they are accurate and user-friendly and they come from UL Solutions, a trusted industry partner with more than 120 years of experience in product testing, certification and verification services.

UL Solutions benchmarks cover a variety of performance capabilities for computers and smart devices used at the office and in the home, for work and for play. Customers can easily understand our benchmark data because sales associates can easily explain it. Even nontechnical customers can feel empowered to understand how a computer will perform the tasks specific to their needs. Will it run smoothly while multitasking or handling large files? Will a laptop battery last throughout the day? Consumers who understand computer performance make better purchasing decisions.

For retail businesses, our easily understood benchmarks can help increase sales, reduce returns and improve customer satisfaction. We already work with many international consumer electronics retailers, helping them achieve their goals and maximize customer experience. Our Benchmark team can create custom benchmarks to fit your business needs. We can thoroughly test and assess your products under controlled conditions in dedicated laboratories, or we can help you set up and run your own testing facilities with processes that deliver accurate, repeatable test results.

Our benchmark data comes in tailored packages, making it much easier for your customers to confidently choose and buy a new PC, Mac, tablet or smartphone and allowing your sales staff to recommend and sell devices with greater information and insight into each product on the shelf. Your customers can also download our complimentary benchmarking software to test an existing device or computer at home before coming into a store, which can highlight the value of an upgrade or replacement.

PC performance is incredibly important for gamers, and new games constantly raise the bar for visually rich, immersive experiences. We conduct game performance testing on a broad selection of hardware that covers the range of popular CPUs and GPUs found in modern gaming computers.

To date, our dedicated laboratories have assessed more than 50 of the world’s newest, most popular games on a variety of computers. We test each game at different resolution settings, from 1080p medium and 1080p ultra to 1440p ultra, 4K UHD medium and 4K UHD ultra, pushing each game and computer system to its technical limits. In your retail store, you can explain this performance data and demonstrate the expected frame rates for each gaming computer.

Gamers fear that a new PC won’t be able to play the latest games or deliver the experiences they want, but how do they know for sure? Even expert consumers may struggle to understand complex technical specifications, confusing naming schemes and manufacturer jargon. Measuring and grading computer and game specifications according to specific categories can help clear the air. Product categories can help your customers find the gaming computers that best meet their needs and budgets.

Gaming computer benchmarks slot performance into different categories, from abilities adequate to basic computing needs or full-blown artistic creation to meeting the needs of a casual or elite gamer. Color-coded categories and numbered scores give consumers and sales associates a good idea of which platforms work best for specific games, enabling improved in-store presentation by grouping products with similar performance. You can guide consumers to what they really need and want rather than what is simply technically possible.

We designed our benchmarks to be accurate, neutral and relevant, and they extend beyond gaming to the many uses of both home and office computers. Our benchmarking capabilities include real-world scenario testing on professional applications like Microsoft 365 and Adobe. Our multiplatform Procyon® benchmark suite, for example, runs benchmark tests focusing on office productivity, photo and video editing, battery life, AI inference and more.

We designed our benchmarks and performance around common activities and real-world applications. We can provide data on everyday device usage as well as gaming-specific statistics. Our performance data combined with categorization gives your customers a more accessible way to choose a PC or Apple Mac computer. Instead of trying to compare complicated specifications, consumers can choose a device based on the activities that are most important to them, and it’s all summed up in a simple score.