Comments on: Does the Windows Experience Index Number Mean Anything?

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:55:17 +0000

Everyone seems to think the score is worthless. It in fact is useful for measuring the performance of your computer. Lower doesn’t neccissarily mean bad. I have a 7.4 for Gaming, but I doubt any games today utilize that potential. It does not mean a computer rated at 3.4 can’t run games, it just means that it may not be able to run future games.

You can also use it to determine how well yoru computer is holding up over time. When you first get it run the experience index. If you feel your computer is slowing down later of old age run it again and see what number you get. If your number is lower it may indicate a problem.

My gaming score went from a 7.4 to a 1.0 after I had played with the BIOS settings. And indeed it was acurate no games would play on my computer until I tweaked my settings. It definitly has some uses.

By: CyberJ

CyberJ — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 06:19:47 +0000

core i7, asus gtx295, 6GB corsair 1333 (3*2), 1Tb WD 7200rpm, with a lowest score of 7.1, and aa maximum score of 7.9, which is the maximum I could get.

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:20:08 +0000

the above processor should ay GHZ not MHZ sorry

By: Ray

Ray — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:17:18 +0000

My desktop tops out in every field at 5.9
I have a quad amd proc 8200mhz , 2*ATI 768mb graphics SLI
asus delux motherboard and 8gig 1000mz ram and 2 *1.5 sata2 3gb hard drives and 7.1 pci sound blaster

running on vista 64bit and i get no problems. Brilliant setup for everything

By: grouchpunk08

grouchpunk08 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 06:29:51 +0000

Numbers are always a guideline, and most of they time they arent a good guideline. Even system requirements for games dont mean much. My processor is a core2duo at 1.86 ghz, and I have 4 gigs of ram, but then I have a 512mb 8800GTS. According to minimum system requirements, I shouldn’t even be able to play crysis on low. My processor doesn’t meet the min requirement. But I can play it on medium with some of the options on high at 30 frames per second. Back to numbers, you can’t look at one single component to determine whether or not your system is good. You have to look at the whole thing, as one whole machine.

By: ketan

ketan — Mon, 11 May 2009 17:58:26 +0000

@ Randall, The base score is the lowest score you get in all the categories. In your particular case it was for the CPU. For some one else the lowest score might be for the RAM, and that score will count towards the experience index

By: Randall Lind

Randall Lind — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:30:08 +0000

They should rename it CEI for CPU Experience Index. No matter how good your hardware is Im am getting all 5.x but my AMD 64bit 3700+ is 4.2

So my WEI is 4.2 so really all it cares about is the rating of the CPU. So it’s really a waste to scan the memory, hard drive, video Card.

By: Nikola Ristich

Nikola Ristich — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:17:43 +0000

Window’s Vista Experinence does not mean much, if you want a true result to see if your laptop is any good, try using 3dMark 06 to see a true benchmark score. Even gaming laptops have been listed with a 2.7 score.

By: Ravi

Ravi — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:27:14 +0000

magicmicro is pretty good eh Akshay?

By: Akshay Chauhan

Akshay Chauhan — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 18:20:19 +0000

I got 4.6 with 2×2 GB Ram 800Mhz Transcend RAM. My MEMORY was the lowest score in all the other fields. Others were 5.9 , top of the line ;) . Few days back I installed OCZ XTC Thermal Ram Cooler . It is basically meant for those who overclock ram frequencies but for normal users it increases your ram life by keeping it cool and cool bright LEDs to brighten your cabinet. I just rechecked my results now i am getting 5.0 in MEMORY and 5.9 in other sections.

My Rig
Intel Q6600 Quad Core @ 2.4Ghz
4GB 800Mhz with OCZ XTC RAM Coooling
Asus P5NE SLI
MSI GeForce 8800GT 512MB GDDR3 OC Edition
HDD 2×250 GB + 160GB + 40GB
PSU Cooler Master 600W
Cabinet Cooler Master CM 690

By: plugnplay

plugnplay — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:08:44 +0000

A graphics card that only has 128MB dedicate video memory and is using a big chunk of shared (system) memory is unlikely to be a good performer. All of the high end graphics cards use only dedicated memory and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good performing graphics card with less than 256MB dedicated. As of June 2008, I think all the good performers have at least 512MB.

See if a new video driver is available, as that can make an appreciable difference to performance.

Base score is always based on the lowest score for any component, as that indicates an area of slowdown or a bottleneck in your computer.

By: bensss

bensss — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:48:24 +0000

i have a total available graphics memory of 1407mb because of my 3gb ram, and 128 dedicated video memory. yet my rating for graphics is only 3.4 and it is also my base score. why is this so?

By: r3novatyo

r3novatyo — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:55:53 +0000

I think this index helps people understand the value of a good configuration.It is a very useful index for people pasionate on overclocking because it hepls them knowing how much difference makes different settings

By: Jayden C

Jayden C — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:10:51 +0000

I agree with some of the above comments, that Microsoft is trying to start a trend!

By: Sofaires

Sofaires — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:21:46 +0000

your computer should be around what u expected but remember that the rating its based on the lowest subcore hardware so i think the lack of rating its because your video card