“We should see this moment [the COVID-19 pandemic] as an opportunity to shift our focus as an industry from benchmarks to the benefits and impacts of the technology we create. The pandemic has underscored the need for technology to be purpose-built so it can meet these evolving business and consumer needs”, he said.

Chipzilla has been coming out badly compared to AMD’s latest offerings but Swan appears to think we should ignore benchmarks completely. In a feat of logic which would have defied Socrates, Swan claimed that this was important in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said that we should see the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to shift focus as an industry from benchmarks to the benefits and impacts of the technology we create. The pandemic has underscored the need for technology to be purpose-built so it can meet these evolving business and consumer needs, he said.

His argument is that technology coverage should focus on positive use cases rather than emphasising benchmarks.

While most people accept that benchmarks do not capture the entire product experience, it has not stopped Intel using them for decades. The difference is not that Chipzilla is not in such a good position compared to AMD. Benchmarks seem to prove that AMD’s offerings are better than Intel’s and are much cheaper.

Swan knows this so he wants the emphasis to be the benefits and impacts of technology on a work from home situation.

But benchmarking is how the tech press find thermal problems and companies who cheat on their specs. It is how we tell if a power-saving mode is working properly or if battery life is what is claimed.

While it has limits, it is the best thing that we have to show some real differences between products. Swan would like us not to use benchmarking, but no one is going to listen to that. What is surprising is that Intel seems to think that someone will listen.