Anyone have a good minimum Passmark score for basic system?

[cwatkin]

I work on computers for a living. Unfortunately I come across some real dogs that people bought at a store where you can also buy diapers and toilet paper. They are cheap and what you would expect for something with minimum specs. These end users are often the most demanding and I recently ran across a woman running her small business off a low-end AMD based system. She had no antivirus installed and the computer was a disaster. So, I clean up the computer and had Kaspersky Internet Security installed. The problem now is that the computer doesn't have enough power to run basic tasks such as e-mail, web, and Microsoft Office with the antivirus running in the background. She is upset with me as I charged her for the service and feels that she didn't gain anything.

Basically, I am now going to have the end user sign a form acknowledging some limitation that will impact performance and is outside my control. I am going to include slow internet speeds as well as CPU speeds and RAM. I still feel that 4GB of RAM is more than adequate for a lower end system to operate decently. I haven't settled on a Passmark score for the CPU yet but feel that somewhere in the 1300-2000 range should be the lowest score of any CPU on the market. The computer that prompted me to do this was well below 1000 on the score. So,, I am going to have a form that I will require people to sign if the internet speed is below 3MBPS, they have less than 4GB of RAM, and/or their CPU falls below a certain number on the Passmark scores. I don't benchmark the computers. I just lookup the CPU score on Passmark online once I see what CPU they are running.

I know certain things can influence the performance of a computer. A slower older CPU will do better with an SSD and a nice modern CPU will fall on its face when mated to a slow 5400RPM mechanical hard drive. I have worked on some Core 2 Duo systems with a Passmark score of around 2000 and a SSD. They hold up quite nicely in terms of user experience and "snap" of applications opening/closing, etc. I also find that Windows 10 and even 8/8.1 run much better than Windows 7 on similar hardware due to more efficient resource usage.

I basically want to have a score that can do most things that most users today will be able to do without many issues. I figure on this system having onboard graphics and not a discrete card. This is a basic system, not an enthusiast or gamer rig. Running a decent antivirus in the background without maxing out the CPU is a must! I have also run into a few modern but cheap systems that cannot play videos recorded using current cameras and cell phones. Most of these are encoding in x.265 which takes more CPU power to decode. I was able to decode a 1080P x.265 video without trouble on a Core 2 Duo that scored 1110 on the Passmark score. It was pretty much maxed out but was able to play the video.

So, I want to hear opinions on what a person should consider as a minimal Passmark score for a decent user experience. We all know how people buy whatever is cheap and then complain when there is nothing they can do about it so they blame you. I will make people acknowledge their system CPU's Passmark score alongside what I consider to be minimal before doing any work on their systems if they are low-end junk. I feel that this number will be in the 1300-2000 range. Anyone have other opinions or a more narrowed range and why?

I posted this same question on a couple other forums. It seems it is suggested that no one purchase a computer with a Passmark score of less than 2500. How about for an older one? Where is the cutoff to where you are making too many compromises to make this worthwhile?

Thanks,

Conor

 

[CountMike]

Beside the fact that different versions of Passmark (and other benchmarks) don't give same results across different versions they are not universal performance indicator. Best use for benchmarks is to measure (some) performance differences when optimizing your own system or comparing to identical systems. Just too many variables out there.
Best to look at your main and most used programs and see what they require most. Some may need powerful CPU, some more and faster RAM while some other emphasize GPU and/or even storage system.

 

[cwatkin]

I know certain variables will make a difference. A lesser CPU mated with an SSD is going to do better than some higher performing CPUs with a spinner drive. I am basically trying to either weed out the customers who buy a cheap computer and balk at paying to have it repaired or make sure they know my service time will cost as much or more than the system.

 

[CountMike]

When building a work system I usually start at CPU and build around it. When building a game system GPU come first all within a certain budget but knowing what system will prevalently be for is main concern. Many fall in the trap of "But all I want is a computer to play games" and it's difficult to explain why that is most expensive proposition to pay "All that money for a toy".
Benchmarks can't really give you all you need to know. Same total result may mean weak CPU and good GPU, fast memory with slow disk and vice-versa on all of that.

 

[James Mason]

Passmark might be kinda unusable for your purpose, but something like UserBenchmark which compares how the hardware in the system is performing against not only the same hardware, but also in the overall spectrum of all hardware.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/
The only problem is hardware can easily underperform in the benchmark if ANY unnecesary software is running, anti-virus, web browsers, skype even.

 

[cwatkin]

I still think it give a good ballpark estimate. People who have a severely outdated system or one that they bought cheap are not going to be happy. It is upsetting to have them blame ME because they picked a slow and cheap unit. Also, I have internet speed as one of my criteria. Anything less than 3meg is too slow for even the most basic browsing in today's world.

I am not even considering a discrete graphics card in this basic analysis. This is just for a bare minimum computer. A Celeron or AMD A or E series may not be able to handle even the most basic tasks with an antivirus running out of the box. Basically, I get people who are penny wise and pound foolish and don't want to pay for anything. These are always the WORST customer and they come back with some lame excuse as to why I overcharged them. The people with a $3000 iMac never do this. It is always the people with a dime store computer.

 

[CountMike]

Sure, Passmark is some guidance but individual component score can show more discrimination for different uses. You can get same or even better score with top end CPU but with only IGPU as slow CPU with top end GPU but would still be a dog in games. It would on the other hand make a great workstation or even a server.

 

[cwatkin]

My main purpose is for basic usage, not insane gaming or video encoding. My problems with people occur when they have bought a low-end system based on price alone. EVERYTHING is low-end in such units.

I see some older units used for office tasks run excellently with SSDs installed. These are 2.6-3.0 GHZ Core 2 Duo era systems. I know that components play a major role but I am considering this for only the most basic tasks. If a computer can't browse the web and run an antivirus because this slows is down so much that is not an acceptable computer.

 

[CountMike]

I consider my main computer (see my sig) to be middle of the road, all purpose machine without much gaming but some AutoCAD, video works etc. It scores 3120 points in Passmark. If that would be some reference for you. Does CAD easily and some video work may bog down a bit. Probably needs more RAM. I also run several OSes in VM and usually give them half the resources of the host (W10). Most Linux distros are quite happy like that.
I'll be switching to Ryzen soonwhich could give me twice performance for same money. It will also be mid sized system.