Benchmarks: CPU
Want to know how dominant Intel is in the laptop space? Seven of the eight systems on show are outfitted with an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor. The odd one out is the Acer Aspire, which opts instead for an Intel Core i5-7300HQ.
Defiance XS should therefore deliver a familiar level of CPU performance. This is the case in the single-threaded PiFast and multi-threaded Cinebench tests, but Handbrake tells a different story. The video encoding benchmark is the toughest examination on this page and is good at identifying laptops that throttle. A score of under 40fps confirms that the PC Specialist is struggling to maintain peak frequency, and this is backed up by our log files reporting the chip dialling down from 3.4GHz to 2.9GHz when the going gets tough.