January 20, 2009,
Summary
Microsoft has lifted the veil on some of the changes made to the Windows Experience Index system in Windows 7.
Microsoft has lifted the veil on some of the changes made to the Windows Experience Index system in Windows 7.
"The Windows Experience Index (also known as WEI) is a suite of system tests that give the end user an idea of the performance capabilities of their PC. I’ve talked before about WEI in Vista so I won’t cover that ground again (refer to this post for background information), but I will take a look at some of the most significant changes to WEI in Windows 7.
Windows 7 raises the top WEI score from 5.9 to 7.9. This takes into account faster hardware that’s been released since Vista went RTM.
Five areas tested stays the same:
- Processor
- Memory (RAM)
- Graphics (general desktop work)
- Gaming Graphics (typically 3D)
- Primary Hard Disk
The scoring rules have been changed, which means that scores on identical hardware relative to Vista might not be the same.
WEI scores of 6 and 7 represent high end systems.
to score a 6 or 7 in terms of gaming graphics, a system will have to support DirectX 10 and WDDM 1.1 driver. DirectX 9 support only, along with WDDM 1.0 drivers, will cap score at 5.9.
Hard drive scores for drives exhibiting what Microsoft calls “problematic” have been capped under Beta 1 of Windows 7.
As guidance, Microsoft claim that most quad-core CPUs will be able to hit high 6 to low 7 range, with 8-core rigs able to approach 7.9.
I’ve yet to see a system that scores a full 7.9 under Windows 7. To be honest, it might not be possible right now. As far as I can tell the Core i7 Extreme 965 doesn’t score a 7.9, in which case to get a high score for the CPU you’d need an 8-core dual-CPU rig like a Skulltrail, but that platform doesn’t support SLI or Crossfire, so you’d be hit on the graphics side. Maybe an insane overclock on the 965 would work, but that only goes so far. I’m sure you’d also need a quad-GPU graphics card too. Oh, and a RAID 0 array of really fast drives, maybe SSDs. And add to that fast DDR3.
Given this it may not be possible to hit the magical 7.9 score just yet."
^This was in 2009 when W-7 frist came out.
Next is up to date in 2011
"Windows Vista and Windows 7 come with an "Aero Theme", which makes heavy use of your graphics card (video card) to give you this beautiful interface, colors, and animation that are a stark transition from previous versions of Windows (including Windows XP, but mostly earlier ones). Since these nice animation and visual effects require more resources from your graphics card, processor (CPU), and memory (RAM) to a lesser extent, Microsoft has come up with a universal measure, a number, that evaluates (somewhat arbitrarily) how well equipped your computer is to run demanding tasks like running the Aero Theme - this does not mean that a low Windows Experience Index will prevent you from running the Aero experience on Windows 7 or Vista, just that the experience may be less SMOOTH."
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