IT departments for medium-sized companies face constant pressure to do more with less, given their limited IT budgets. Some businesses might try to stretch their IT dollars by extending the lives of the older PCs their workers use on a daily basis. But three-year-old (and older) devices can lack the performance, security, manageability, and stability enabled by modern PCs built on newer Intel^® Core^™ vPro^® processors, running Windows^® 10. Is it worth the trade-off for organizations to keep using outdated devices, despite the likely benefits offered by newer PCs?

To help organizations make an informed decision, Prowess Consulting conducted testing that compared the performance and capabilities of Windows 10 running on three-year-old devices, powered by 6th Generation Intel Core vPro processors, to newer devices, powered by the latest 8th Generation Intel Core vPro processors. We ran real-world tests, which go beyond industry-standard benchmarking, by running workloads common to modern workers.

Our investigation pointed to a clear answer.¹ Windows 10 devices that are powered by the Intel vPro^® platform and 8th Generation Intel Core i7 vPro processors show significant benefits across a number of areas compared to Windows 10 devices powered by three-year-old, 6th Generation Intel Core i7 vPro processors (“6th generation systems”). 

Prowess Internal Benchmark Testing

2020