Why is my Windows Experience Index so low?

[danhasmail]

Hi everyone,
When i check the Windows Experience Index it shows a Base score of 5.9.

Sub score
Processor - Intel Core i7 CPU 930 2.8GHz - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7.5
Memory - 6.00 GB - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7.5
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7.8
Gaming graphics - 4091 MB Total available graphics memory - - 7.8
Primary hard disk - 62GB free (101GB Total) - - - - - - - - - - - - 5.9

My hard disk is a Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0GB/s

Why do i get such a low score on my hard disk?

It's set up on the SATA 6GB port of my ASUS Rampage lll Extreme motherboard..
Partitioned as follows:
C: = 100 GB
D: = 200 GB
System reserved = 100 MB
Unallocated = 630 GB

Anyone have any ideas or comments???
Thank you in advance.
danny

 

[genghiskron]

because its an arbitrary scale based on the technology microsoft was aware of at the time they "designed" it. You will only get a nice high score with an SSD. dont worry about it. what kind of stupid scale only goes up to 7.9 anyways.

 

[danhasmail]

yeah, most scales go to 10. duh microsoft.

Thanks for your quick answer, i won't let it bother me anymore.
Have a wonderful day.

 

[Outlander_04]

Your HDD partitioning is weird

Give yourself a big fat C drive , and see if that makes a difference

 

[boiler1990]

A) The Caviar Black isn't *that* fast. Although WD added the 6Gbps compatibility, the platters aren't dense enough to even make use of that.

B) It doesn't really matter. My WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD gets a 5.9 as well, but I boot in under 30 seconds.

 

[JDFan]

Pretty much any 7200rpm HDD will result in a 5.9 WEI rating since the rating goes just by the description not based on the actual testing of the drives throughput etc. as already mentioned it is just an arbitrary scale made up by MS to convince people to upgrade hardware.

 

[cjanecki84]

Hi everyone,
When i check the Windows Experience Index it shows a Base score of 5.9.

Sub score
Processor - Intel Core i7 CPU 930 2.8GHz - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7.5
Memory - 6.00 GB - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7.5
Graphics - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7.8
Gaming graphics - 4091 MB Total available graphics memory - - 7.8
Primary hard disk - 62GB free (101GB Total) - - - - - - - - - - - - 5.9

My hard disk is a Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0GB/s

Why do i get such a low score on my hard disk?

It's set up on the SATA 6GB port of my ASUS Rampage lll Extreme motherboard..
Partitioned as follows:
C: = 100 GB
D: = 200 GB
System reserved = 100 MB
Unallocated = 630 GB

Anyone have any ideas or comments???
Thank you in advance.
danny

The experience index is a weird beast because your score is based off of the LOWEST factor. Being that your HDD is a 5.9, that's your score. My computer is the same, an i5-750 oc'd yadda yadda yadda. I also have the WD Black, which is a very good HDD btw it just cant hit the transfer rate of a SSD. IF you added a small SSD just for windows and programs ~100gb, you'd see your index score jump. Hope this was helpful!

 

[danhasmail]

Hi again everyone,
I went and bought a new SSD (OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS). Put it in and loaded Win 7 64bit and Office and a few other things.Tried the Windows Experience Index again and it's alot better.The processor, memory, and graphics stayed the same, but the Primary hard disk went from 5.9 to 7.9 which gives it a score of 7.5 (goes by the lowest scoreing item).Just wanted to let you know.
danny

 

[aaron88_7]

I have 2 WD blacks in raid 0 to give me an awesome bump from 5.9 up to the incredible 6.1

And I agree with others, the scoring is f-ing retarded and completely pointless. Hard drive speed only effects load times and nothing else.

 

[danhasmail]

Best answer selected by danhasmail.

 

[jmaher]

Had the same issue w/a 1TB WD Raptor @ 10K RPM. Installed w/Win7 Home on a Asus Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard. Windows Experience Index gives a score of 5.9. Just make sure your 6GB/SATA HD connects to a "brown" SATA port on the Motherboard. You may have to reverse the 6GB SATA CABLE to allow proper boot. This means that the "angled side" of the sata cable connects to the motherboard. (very Important!!) If you got that...then you got 6GB transfer speeds....and that's all that matters...


Peace

 

[jmaher]

I have 2 WD blacks in raid 0 to give me an awesome bump from 5.9 up to the incredible 6.1

And I agree with others, the scoring is f-ing retarded and completely pointless. Hard drive speed only effects load times and nothing else.

Yea...Windows gives you a few points for a RAID.....shortly Windows will have a fix for this, to recognize 6BG transfer drives/ports to allocate a 7.9 score in the Windows Experience Index..And then...and only then....will we see the 7.9 score we deserve ...as long as your ahead...all that matters...

Peace..

The large print giveth, but the small print taketh away.

~ Tom Waits