7.9 WEI all the way

June 15, 2010 6:34:45 PM

Does anyone know exactly which components (or lower components overclocked) it takes to achieve a Windows Experience Index Rating of 7.9 for each spot. I know that it really doesn't mean much but I'm one of those people that likes to have the top of the line(while still on a tight budget of course). Basically I'm not looking for what it will take with the highest priced parts I'm looking to see if I can get it with the lowest priced parts as possible (I.E. overclocking a core i7-930 to 4.2 GHz in stead of buying a core i7-980x basically like that). I'm also wondering about the SSD's I want to get and put in raid. I have seen a lot of forums and reviews about Intel's new update that allows TRIM support for SSD's in a raid configuration. I even found a link to download the update but there isn't much info on requirements(I don't know if I need a certain SSD or Motherboard or any other piece of equipment for it to work). I know that if i put 2 medium to high quality SSD's in a RAID 0 configuration it will achieve the 7.9 on the WEI but I don't want to sacrifice TRIM for a 7.9 when a single drive can get 7.4 or better. I know that this is a pretty useless thing to strive for but I'm interested non the less. If you have any 7.9's in Windows 7 then please let me know which piece of hardware you have to achieve it. Thank you guys for any input that you might have.

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banthracis

Homebuilt system Expert

June 15, 2010 7:28:48 PM

Wall of text crits me for 10 million.
My head explodes >.<

Actually, I'm not even sure if MS has every released the exact criteria they base the ratings on.

If they haven't it's not that easy to tell you the cheapest way to hit 7.9

Also, as you mentioned, it's a pretty arbitrary and useless rating.

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lawrencendlw

June 15, 2010 7:49:27 PM

Yeah but in its own way it does help to find where the bottle neck is in your system. It's really not all that important. I was however interested in the whole SSD thing. I'm trying to find the best SSD that I can that is a good mix of performance and value. I hear that you can put 2 in a raid 0 and get really great speeds but I have read TRIM is supported in raid but then I have heard contrary to that too so I'm a bit confused. And to add to that they throw in garbage collection into the mix to confuse me even more. So is TRIM in raid possible or not? If so then I know that my WEI for Hard drive will far surpass the maximum 7.9 rating. I'm not at all worried about the other pieces of hardware because I'm gonna be fine on the rest except for maybe the video card but im gonna add a second GTX 470 later or use EVGA's trade up program and get a GTX 480.

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Germaniac2

August 7, 2010 1:30:40 AM

Four (4) OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs (120GB each) in RAID0 controlled by an
LSI MegaRAID 8888ELP gave me a 7.9 for primary disk performance.
[Wasn't cheap though. But this controller allows me to add 4 more SSDs.]

I doubt you'll be able to get a 7.9 using only an onboard controller or
'only' two SSDs. There's a reason companies like LSI & Adaptec are
still in business and are doing quite well. A PCI-E x8 controller is in IMHO
an absolute must if you want that 7.9 for disk performance.

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lawrencendlw

August 15, 2010 9:54:00 AM

Like stated above, a 7.9 doesn't really matter as its a pointless benchmark(if you want to call it that) . I have a Micron RealSSD 128GB SATAIII SSD and it gives me great numbers so I'm fine with it. I might upgrade to a second one at a later time but I don't need to since my system is screaming fast now and I doubt that I will do anything that will bring it to its knees anytime soon. Hell even folding 24/7 on my CPU and 2 GPU's at 100% load still lets me surf and play games so I don't mind ( I know I get less PPD when I do stuff on the computer but I'm not gonna quit using my main computer for a few thousand PPD lol)

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