Thoughts
It's hard to argue with Intel's idea that the PC industry needs to be able to benchmark digital-home PCs to see how well they can carry out the tasks they'll be expected to do - some extremely strenous. Or, indeed, whether they can carry them out at all.
So, our congratulations must go to Intel for having had the foresight to create a suite to do this job. However, doubts will remain about Intel's impartiality and whether this will put systems based on competitors' CPUs at a disadvantage.
A more urgent concern for reviewers and system builders based outside of the USA is that Intel Digital Home Capabilities Assessment Tool is deeply flawed, simply because it fails to take account of differences between in hardware sold in the USA and in other markets.
Consequently, for the present, HEXUS concludes that IDHCAT has little practical use for testing multimedia PCs sold in the UK or anywhere else outside the USA (perhaps with the exception of Canada). Nonetheless, we're keen to see if the next iteration puts this right and even more keenly await the arrival of independent, third-party benchmark suites for whole-body multimedia PC testing that Intel believes will be coming along soon.
