What’s up folks!
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Ok, I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a “Benchmark Geek”. I’ve always benchmarked my systems and then tweaked them to get just a little bit more out of them – there’s always room for improvement…right?
Naturally one of my favorite features of Windows Vista has been the Windows Experience Index. This little tool has gotten a lot of criticism around the web and there is a known way to “fake” your scores, and lots of people have been doing it and then posting the results around the web. Those people, however are just out to make their CyberWeiners bigger and aren’t really interested in the Benchmark results. A true benchmark geek wants fair and accurate results.
Back in April Tom’s Hardware did an interesting article called “Vista: Benchmarking or Benchmarketing“. They were able to find a correlation between the WEI scores and traditional benchmarks, as well as real world applications. Check it out if you get the time.
The scores measure:
• Processor: Calculations per second
• Memory: Operations per second
• Graphics: Desktop performance for Windows Aero graphics
• Gaming graphics: 3D graphics performance. Useful for gaming and 3D business applications
• Primary hard disk: The data transfer rate of the primary hard disk
Right now the scores range from 1 to 5.9, and here is a brief explanation of the ratings from Tom’s Harware:
This is a good overview, but if you really want to dig in and learn what the scores are all about, read this post over on the Windows Vista Team Blog.
One thing to note about the scores, is that the lowest sub-score makes for your final score. In reality, if you wind up with a system w/ a low graphics score, but don’t do a lot of work that really taxes the limits of your graphic subsystem, you might want to pay attention to your “next-lowest” score in the CPU, Memory or Disk category.
I decided to take the opportunity to share my WEI scores with the world, first is my machine at Work (owned by the company, not by me) – it’s the slower machine, but ironically, the one I give the biggest workout day to day (besides some gaming on my home machine).
The specifications of this machine are:
Dell Optiplex 320:
Intel Pentium 4 HT 3.0GHz
2GB DDR-2 533 (PC4200) RAM
80GB WD SATA HDD (2MB Cache)
Nvidia 7300SE 256MB PCI-E Video Card
Next, we have my home machine, the specifications are:
Homebuilt
AMD Athlon X2 4600+ 2.4GHz
2GB DDR-2 800 (PC6400) RAM
320GB WD SATA HDD (16MB Cache) – Main Drive
250GB WD PATA HDD (8MB Cache) – Storage Drive
120GB Seagate PATA HDD (8MB Cache) – Storage Drive
Nvidia 7900GS 256MB PCI-E Video Card (Overclocked to 500MHz Core – 700MHz/1400MHz RAM)
I’m sure I could tell a huge difference in Gaming performance, but honestly, using “Office Type” applications, I can’t tell much of a difference between the two machines at all. The work machines score suffers most in the Graphics area, but I run dual 19″ 1280×1024 LCD’s and Aero runs smooth as silk, so I can’t complain there even w/ the 2.8 Score for Aero ability. Plus, I tax that work machine pretty hard every day – I keep multiple applications open…I ALWAYS have the Remote Desktops Management Console (part of the Server 2003 Admin Pack), Outlook 2007, Multiple instances of Notepad2, at least 2 Firefox sessions w/ multiple tabs each, and several Explorer windows open ALL THE TIME. I also use Virtual Box to run a XP Virtual that gets opened occasionally. Still, this machine keeps chugging right along. In fact, this machine got faster when I loaded Vista on it compared to the XP install that was originally loaded…much faster. Vista really does a better job of scheduling processes, as well as managing memory.
The moral of this story is, benchmark all you want – tweak your system to get the most out of it, but at the end of the day, unless you are Gaming, rendering 3-D images, or editing Video or Audio, you probably won’t tell much of a difference unless the machine is at the extreme high-end or at the extreme low-end.
