How seriously do you take the "Windows Experience Index?"

[escapegoat]

You know the thing in system properties that rates your components 1 to 10? Do you take that seriously? It seems as if the hard drive data transfer rate is what drags down most people's "index." Like, on mine everything is 7+ except the hard drive data transfer rate is 5.9, despite the fact that it's a 7200 rpm drive, which most people have. I suppose if I did a RAID setup it would make that score go up? (I'm unlikely to do that because I don't want to generate extra heat, just speculating)

Do people look at these scores, and if so, how seriously do you take them?

 

[Novuake]

You won't see an improvement on that score in RAID. Only with an SSD it will improve.

Like any other benchmark its a way to quickly guage a PCs capabilities. So taking it seriously is not as importent as a matter of convenience.

 

[Gothams Finest]

All hard drives AFAIK are limited to a score of 5.9, so evan if you had the fastest HDD the max score you could get is 5.9.
As Novuake said, only with a SSD will the score improve to a maximum score of 7.9.

I personally don't take the WEI seriously and I get a score of 7.9 for everything which is the maximum score, but that doesn't mean my computer is the best computer out there.

 

[jitpublisher]

This is what it means

"A PC with a score of 2 is typically sufficient for basic tasks like word processing or web browsing. Running the Aero desktop experience requires at least a 3, while graphics–intensive software frequently requires a 4 or higher."

So if you are running 4 or higher, all it means is that according to Microsoft, your PC is good enough to "enjoy" using Windows 7 with its all its fancy features enabled. Don't take it for anything more than that.

 

[inanition02]

All a 7.9 means is that your computer can run Windows as well as any computer out there...note, this means nothing about how you can run other software in Windows...

And an SSD will appreciably improve how well your PC runs Windows...so it will improve your score.

 

[geekapproved]

You know the thing in system properties that rates your components 1 to 10? Do you take that seriously? It seems as if the hard drive data transfer rate is what drags down most people's "index." Like, on mine everything is 7+ except the hard drive data transfer rate is 5.9, despite the fact that it's a 7200 rpm drive, which most people have. I suppose if I did a RAID setup it would make that score go up? (I'm unlikely to do that because I don't want to generate extra heat, just speculating)

Do people look at these scores, and if so, how seriously do you take them?

I could care less about as WEI. First of all, it's not 1-10, it's 1-7.9

It doesn't matter if you have a quad core at 3ghz or a Octo-core at 5ghz, your rating is still going to be 7.9

I has no relation to how your computer will run games or apps, only Windows.

 

[p05esto]

It's pretty darn reliable and basically "the" benchmark people use nowadays in conversation. The marks are very accurate when I consider my current 5 computers (from Vista to Win7), each piece of hardware and score very accurately reflects what is in that machine relative this moment in time and available hardware.

As your system ages the score will lower itelf (as better hardware is available). A fast Core i7 CPU that used to get 7.9 now gets 7.5 for example. So your old mechanical hard drive will score very low compared to the insane speeds of SSD drives, and even then if your SSD is a couple years older it will not get a 7.9. I recently purchased a HyperX SSD and finally see a 7.9 score (not that I buy parts caring about the score of course, it was just time to upgrade).

There are other benchmark tools out there of course, but with everyone having a level playing field using the MS one in Windows it's actually pretty good, reliable, etc!

The only thing I don't understand is why they don't simply have a 1-10 scale and why is 7.9 of all things the top number? Only MS would come up with the scale and then not explain how it works, lol. But it does work once you understand it.

 

[escapegoat]

lol, I never realized 7.9 was the highest. I just assumed my components were in the 7's out of 10 because it's a couple years old.

 

[inanition02]

5.9 was the highest in Vista - 7.9 in Windows 7. I suppose Windows 8 will up that again.

 

[Gothams Finest]

5.9 was the highest in Vista - 7.9 in Windows 7. I suppose Windows 8 will up that again.

What he said.