score of 2.4! what the .....

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows Experience Index: An In-Depth Look
http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/458117.aspx

The Windows Experience Index rating may inherit an incorrect value
after you make a change to your computer's hardware configuration
or you start Windows Vista for the first time
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933478

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

I thought that my new computer was smokin fast and with all the bells and
whistles I would have a much better score.
why is it so low?
(btw, I had no idea what this was until the guy at Futureshop explained it
to me... not to well I guess or it went right over my head).

 

[Mike]

I thought that my new computer was smokin fast and with all the bells and
whistles I would have a much better score.
why is it so low?
(btw, I had no idea what this was until the guy at Futureshop explained it
to me... not to well I guess or it went right over my head).

The overall score is just the lowest individual score of the listed
components. Which component has the 2.4 score?

It makes no sense to me either. Personally, I take the 5 scores and
average them. My Vista desktop has a 5.2 score.

Mike

 

[John Barnes]

A 1.8gz cpu is pretty slow for Vista and there are many other features of a
graphics card that affect the pixel speed than memory, besides on a laptop
the memory is usually shared.

 

[Kerry Brown]

An average is not a good indication of how a system will perform. The item
with the lowest score will be the bottleneck that determines how the system
performs over a broad range of tasks. Depending on what you do with your
computer the lowest item may not affect what YOU do with the computer. The
computer I'm typing this on has a gaming graphics score of 3.0. This would
be terrible if I was using the computer for gaming. I don't. It's a general
purpose business laptop. The most important thing for me is to have many
programs running at the same time. This is RAM intensive where I have a
score of 5.1. The Experience Index is a tool to make sure the computer has
the resources to do what you need it to do.

 

[David]

is your system date wrong??? all your posts are coming up after current
posts.

Dave

 

[David]

I thought that my new computer was smokin fast and with all the bells
and whistles I would have a much better score.
why is it so low?
(btw, I had no idea what this was until the guy at Futureshop
explained it to me... not to well I guess or it went right over my head).

dude, the score reflects the slowest portion of your pc.

 

[Marco Desloovere]

My graphics scored 3.1/ gaming graphics scored 3 now that I lowered the 3D
settings, was 2.4 when I posted this but got a tweak tip since. with 335MB
for my graphics. Hmmm, I think it's pretty stupid actually.

If I average them I get 4.14

Think of a chain.
On average, the chain might be pretty strong, but that wouldn't make
sense, because when you pull on the chain, that chain will always break
at its weakest link.

In a computer, the individual components are all chained together by the
system bus, but the overall performance can only be as fast as the
slowest (weakest) component.

Marco

 

[Paul]

oops!! yep, it had the wrong date.
I just bought it Friday night so I have been playing with it since then,
lol, my weekend has been not much more than a few beers and this computer.

Thanks Dave, I didn't notice that.

 

[Robert Moir]

A 1.8gz cpu is pretty slow for Vista and there are many other features of a
graphics card that affect the pixel speed than memory, besides on a laptop
the memory is usually shared.

Actually, clock speed isn't an especially important indication of how a
processor might perform, except perhaps as a way of ranking otherwise
identical processors. A 1.8Ghz Core Duo type processor will run Vista just
fine; I've got a 2.0Ghz Core Duo Apple MacBook here that kicks in the teeth
of several computers with higher clock-speed pentiums and celerons when it
comes to running Vista well.

I'd agree with the comments about memory and graphics cards. I'd also
suggest to the original topic starter that they don't fixate too much on the
scores. Whether or not they're useful to some people, at the end of the day
if the computer does everything you need in a satisfactory manner then it's
"fast enough" no matter what the score says. If it doesn't perform
adequately for your needs then it's "not fast enough", again regardless of
the score.

 

[John Barnes]

Actually, clock speed isn't an especially important indication of how a
processor might perform, except perhaps as a way of ranking otherwise
identical processors. A 1.8Ghz Core Duo type processor will run Vista just
fine; I've got a 2.0Ghz Core Duo Apple MacBook here that kicks in the
teeth of several computers with higher clock-speed pentiums and celerons
when it comes to running Vista well.

Very much depends on what you are doing on the computer. I had a 3500
single core that with the processing I do, was constantly hanging several
seconds many times. My biggest complaint is that Vista doesn't seem to
allocate well between the cores on my current cpu, so if I don't manually
set the affinity I still get hanging, with the affinity set it runs all
tasks with no hanging.

I'd agree with the comments about memory and graphics cards. I'd also
suggest to the original topic starter that they don't fixate too much on
the scores. Whether or not they're useful to some people, at the end of
the day if the computer does everything you need in a satisfactory manner
then it's "fast enough" no matter what the score says. If it doesn't
perform adequately for your needs then it's "not fast enough", again
regardless of the score.

Agree. If it does what you need, then it matters not what the score is.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

The overall score is just the lowest individual score of the listed
components. Which component has the 2.4 score?

It makes no sense to me either. Personally, I take the 5 scores and
average them. My Vista desktop has a 5.2 score.

It depends on what you are doing, but in general, the lowest score is
much more meaningful than the average. Think of that lowest score as a
bottleneck. You can't go any faster than what that bottleneck allows.

Actually I wish Microsoft hadn't included this scoring in Vista. My
advice is to subjectively assess the performance you are getting. Are
you happy with it? If yes, forget about the numbers on that scoring
screen.

Only if performance is unsatisfactory should you worry about things
like this.

 

[Telstar]

Actually, clock speed isn't an especially important indication of how a
processor might perform, except perhaps as a way of ranking otherwise
identical processors. A 1.8Ghz Core Duo type processor will run Vista just
fine; I've got a 2.0Ghz Core Duo Apple MacBook here that kicks in the
teeth

The Duo Core is less efficient than the Core 2 Duo....which does he have?

 

[Robert Moir]

The Duo Core is less efficient than the Core 2 Duo....which does he have?

I think he's got the Core Duo. Not as good as the core2duo, you're right,
but plenty good enough.

 

[Allan McDermid]

Sorry for butting in but I have a couple of questions on the same subject.
I have 2 pc's both running Vista Ultimate
One with a score of 5 and one with a score of 4.8
The 4.8 has 3 x 5.9's and one x 5.5 in 4 of the categories, what lets it
down is the AMD athlon X2 3800 running 2.1
The 5 has 1 x 5.9 1x 5.7 1 x 5.5 and 1x 5.4 in 4 of the categories but it
gets the higher score because it is an Intel core 2 duo running at 1.8
So how does the faster CPU get a lower score.
One other thing is that the 5 machine has no performance issues
yet the 4.8 machine gets told it might perform better if display settings
were changed. This machine is running SLI and gets the same score as the
other machine for graphics 5.9 and 5.5 for gaming
Would anybody be able to explain these irregularities to me please.
The reason I am asking is how acurate is this score system

Thanks

Allan.

 

[Spirit]

The faster CPU is the core2duo.... there is more to the speed than the
mhz it runs at.

 

[Dave Lamberson]

You need to look at each aspect of the ratings. Your processor is part of
the cause. Other factors that could cause the lower score are hard drive
speed and memory speed.

 

[Karyn Jayne Panze]

Change your clock. It is off

 

[Paul]

I did that hours ago, look at my replies to my original post.

Thanks

 

[Alan Bunting]

It's low because of your graphics, probably - I've got a dv9000 series as
well; in fact, it's much like yours with two exceptions: the HDD is smaller,
and the graphics chip is a GeForce Go 7600 256MB. With those two differences
my Windows Experience Index is a 4.5 and Geometry Wars runs just fine. (Ha,
ha...) Still can't play Shadowrun though, it requires a GeForce 7800 or
higher. Makes you wonder what's in ye olde 360, eh?

 

[Peter Foldes]

Kind of easy watching your own post when it is always on top. Saves searching for some.