Windows Experience Index + RAM question

[forceheretic]

Please bear with me, I'm sort of new at this and have never posted here before, although I have gotten lots of good information from browsing the forums (thanks for that!)

So, I recently upgraded from 8 gigs of DDR2 800 RAM, which I bought 3 years ago, to 16 gigs of DDR3 1866 RAM. I know that the Windows Experience Index is not the best metric to use as far as quality goes, but my old memory registered a 7.4, while my new memory only registers a 7.5. I'm wondering why? And if there's something I need to do to make it register higher (short of overclocking it)?

For the record, the new memory thus far is running at 1600, not the max of 1866 - my mobo automatically set it there and I haven't changed it yet.

 

[forceheretic]

Other specs on my system:

CPU:AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
Motherboard:BIOSTAR TA970XE AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
Hard drive:Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Graphics Card:SAPPHIRE 100315-2GL Radeon HD 6850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Hope that helps...let me know if any other info would help too. Thanks in advance.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I believe that WEI measures memory bandwidth. The older PII processors can only supply about 13Gb/s. My 2600K has an onboard memory controller and supplies closer to 18Gb/s. Therefore my 8GB of DDR3 1600 scores a 7.8 WEI.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188/5

Actually I'm on my laptop right now but if I remember correctly running Maxxmem my 2600K scores closer to 20Gb/s. I think the 18Gb/s score is with DDR3 1333.

http://www.maxxpi.net/pages/downloads/maxxmemsup2---preview.php

 

[constepatdyak]

Yeah ^ 16gb @ 1600mhz with 2500k currently at 7.8. It's not your Ram, it's your memory controller module.

 

[forceheretic]

I'll go ahead and show my noobiness here - what does that mean? Is it a software issue, and I need to update drivers or somesuch? Or is a hardware feature and I need to upgrade something to improve it?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

No it's a hardware thing. Sandy Bridge is a newer and superior design to the older Phenom II architecture. If you want a higher score then you would need to change your motherboard and CPU.

 

[forceheretic]

D'oh. Well, that's not going to happen anytime soon, as this WAS my upgrade, from an old Athlon64 model. Ah well, thanks for the info anyway! I'm sure I can make do for quite some time with a 7.5.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Yeah WEI is not a very good benchmark. Certainly nothing to get hung up on. Your Phenom II 965 is a fine chip.