[Sunbuff]

I have just upgraded from Vista to W7. On Vista's Experience Index all items on the list were scored the top mark of 5.9. Looking at the scores on W7, three have gone up to 7.3/4my HDD has stayed at 5.9 but my 2GB RAM has been downgraded to 5.5.(Windows7 is supposed to require less memory). Can anyone explain why this should be and possibly advise on how to improve the scores. My HDD presently has 121GB of empty space.


CPU: - Intel® Core 2 Quad QX9770 Extreme
CPU Cooler: - Thermaltake Golden Orb II
Motherboard: - Asus Striker II Extreme (nForce 790i Ultra chipset, 3-way SLI, DDR3)
Memory: - 2.0GB Corsair DDR3 1333mhz XMS3 DHX CL9 (2x 1GB)
Hard Drives: - Velociraptor 300GB S-ATAII 10,000RPM
Optical Drive: - 5x Blu-Ray ROM S-ATA DVD±RW
Graphics card: - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 1GB
Sound card: - Onboard 7.1 Audio
PSU: - 1000W Cooler Master Modular
Accessories: - Floppy drive
Accessories: - 30-in-1 USB Media Card Reader
Case: - Coolermaster Cosmos Type-S
OS: - Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit

[Mumbodog]

I think W7 uses a different scoring system.

Scoring of memory is based on performance characteristics of the memory (mostly read write speeds), not how much W7 uses. As newer faster memory is designed and sold in the market place, your memory score will slide down the scale slightly.

Only way to improve scores is to install faster hardware.


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[crjdriver]

I am wondering did you install your chipset drivers? Was this a clean install or an in place upgrade from vista?

I just checked my hard disk score and it is 7.5 and I have a slower drive than you. WD 750gig Black series w/32meg cache.

[Sunbuff]

Thanks guys for your input!....it's appreciated. I understand that fitting faster RAM and HDD would improve my score but both the memory and the HDD are among the fastest presently on the market ,indeed, a few months ago I carried out an online benchmarking and was told that my machine was in the top 5% of computers.
I used the upgrade method to install W7 all went smoothly and apart from the low scores I am happy with the results.

[Mumbodog]

You can have W7 rescore it.

"re-run the assessment"

[crjdriver]

Did you reinstall your chips/mb drivers after the in place upgrade?

You should score better than my system with a new raptor and your score is quite a bit lower than mine.

[Sunbuff]

Hi guys!....I have tried re-assesment 3 or 4 times without success. My daughter runs W7 with 3Mbs RAM(DDR2) and she has a score for memory of 7.1, it looks to me as if I will need exrta RAM?...I upgraded the chipset drivers after installing the new OS. I haven't a clue about what to do about the HDD.
Once again I thank you for your interest.

[calvin-c]

You might read this http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff_wei.asp particularly the quote "Equally bizarre, Microsoft has actually changed how it rates hardware since Windows Vista, so identical hardware components could actually receive different subscores on each OS, making Vista-to-Windows 7 comparisons impossible."

OTOH comparing your Win7 system to your daughters should work, but there's more involved in memory performance than simply the type of memory. Maybe her chipset is better? In any case, memory's cheap enough (in most cases) that I'd try adding another couple of GB & see what that does. I doubt if it will hurt.

[Sunbuff]

Hi Calvin-c....your input has been very interesting and I am obliged to you. I will be adding more RAM so we will see what effect that has.
Best Wishes.

[Snagglegaster]

Originally Posted by Sunbuff

Hi guys!....I have tried re-assesment 3 or 4 times without success. My daughter runs W7 with 3Mbs RAM(DDR2) and she has a score for memory of 7.1, it looks to me as if I will need exrta RAM?...I upgraded the chipset drivers after installing the new OS. I haven't a clue about what to do about the HDD.
Once again I thank you for your interest.

Actually, if you think about it, a score of 7.1 out of a possible 7.9 is very, very good. Anyway, if you are using 32 bit Win7, you will only have around 3.5 GB of RAM available to Windows, no matter how much memory you install. 64 bit can address more, but I don't think most users are likely to run software that will get a big performance boot from additional RAM beyond 3-4 GB.

Besides, the Windows assessment tool measures the basic performance capability of your memory, and isn't affected by the quantity of RAM in the system. Relax! Your computer looks well able to handle Win7 and most software at high performance levels. Upgrading the computer to deliver all across the board 7.9s is going to get very expensive, and the system may not perform noticeably faster in real world usage.

[calvin-c]

But his memory score under Win7 was 5.5, not 7.1 and the OP only had 2GB installed so my advice to add 'a couple more GB' would only bring it to 4GB. Yes, I probably should have been a little more specific because, as you noted, 4GB is the most that should be installed under Windows 32-bit. (And not even all of that will be used. If there was a way to install exactly 3.75GB....)

Plus, I tried to make it clear that I wasn't certain this would increase his memory score. Normally, I agree with you-more RAM doesn't increase the index score but it definitely doesn't decrease it either (unless you add slower memory than what you currently have). And since he's only got 2GB, I can't see how adding more would hurt.

As for getting a boost out of more than 3GB, that depends on how you use your PC. I'll agree that few applications, when running by themselves, use more than 3GB-or even use as much as 3GB. But many people run 4 or more applications simultaneously, and that definitely can use more than 3GB. Depending on the applications, of course.