Quest for the perfect score

Reach for the top of the Windows Experience Index

By John Swenson

So you want a fast PC? Merely fast enough to run Windows Vista and all your programs smoothly, or a screamer that can handle any task you can throw at it? If you crave a computer speedy enough for everything from editing high-definition video to powering through the latest ultra-realistic games, it’s time to pay attention to your Windows Experience Index score.

It’s always been difficult to measure exactly how fast a PC is and to compare its speed to other computers. Sure, you can examine all its hardware components, but that gets complicated, and it’s difficult to compare different brands of hardware. There are various speed benchmarks, but it’s not always clear what those mean or how to measure your computer against them.

It’s a tough situation for any self-respecting power user. How are you supposed to brag to your friends that your PC is faster than theirs? Well, Windows Vista introduces a new way. You can just check your Windows Experience Index score. Your computer’s performance is distilled down to a single number.

What's in a number?

Actually, the index rates your computer on five key components and gives you a number for each. But your overall base score is only as good as your worst-performing component subscore. It’s the overall score that really matters. (For an overview of the index, see What is the Windows Experience Index?)

In the quest for PC bragging rights, some power users are striving to achieve a perfect Windows Experience Index score. Many are gamers or PC enthusiasts willing to plunk down $500 or more for the latest 3-D video card—or two cards running in tandem. Some of them install memory in double-digit amounts (14 gigabytes, anyone?), add terabytes of hard disk space, and carefully select every component of their high-end computers. All for the elusive goal of achieving a Windows Experience Index score of 5.9.

Wait a minute—5.9? As one person on a Gizmodo.com forum wrote, “What marketing genius decided to make it a 5.9 scale?” The technical wizards on the Windows team who designed this new tool for measuring the speed of a PC settled on a scale of 1 to 5.9. Not 1 to 10, as you might expect.

So why such an odd range of numbers? The index is designed to expand and evolve over time. At some point in the next 12 to 18 months, the Windows team expects to push the maximum score to 6.9, and eventually to 7.9 and beyond. Maybe someday the index will actually reach 10 (or 9.9). This will not change any scores on the low end. A PC rated 2.8 will still stay at 2.8 unless it is upgraded with new hardware components.

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Do bragging rights matter?

Highly technical PC users tend to be a skeptical bunch when it comes to assessing new technology. Not all are convinced that the Windows Experience Index is meaningful. "What a great way for geeks to compete for the highest score," wrote one person on a ZDNet.com forum. "I doubt there is a meaningful way to compare the score to the subjective feeling of how a given (PC) will work. It just seems like just a braggin’ rights kind of thing."

Well, bragging rights do matter to some. Why else would 1,500 people have posted their Windows Experience Index scores on ShareYourScore.com in the first five months after the website launched? But this is hardly the only reason to try for a top index score. Any PC that even comes close to a 5.9 will also let you play the most demanding games at the highest resolutions, keep a dozen big programs all running at once, and handle just about any task you can throw at it.

ShareYourScore.com exists to let PC users compare their index scores, and compare notes on how they achieved their score. Slightly less than 1 percent of the first 1,500 posters achieved a 5.9, with 5 percent scoring 5.5 or higher. The average index score is a modest 3.9. (Full disclosure: I only achieved 4.4 on my new home PC and 3.5 on my work PC.)

ShareYourScore.com is the brainchild of Sander Gerz, a software developer from the Netherlands who spotted the need for a place where people could compare hardware and index scores. Gerz is not among the elite 1 percent, or even the top 5 percent. In fact, he was dismayed to find that the first Windows Vista-based PC he built scored only 3.4. That was with an early beta version of Windows Vista and on a PC he designed more for silent operation than speed, so he wasn’t too disappointed. But at the time, he had no idea if his index score was good or bad.

"I was curious to see how other systems performed," writes Gerz, who also operates the devtips.net website (in Dutch) for programmers. He noticed people discussing their scores in various online forums and exchanging screen shots of their scores. There must be a better way to compare, he thought, so he created ShareYourScore.com.

With more than 1,500 visitors a day, the website has become more popular than he imagined. "People really like to show off their scores," Gerz says.

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No upper spending limit

Microsoft defines any index score of 5.0 or higher as “the highest end of the PC market.” But to the enthusiasts trying to build the ultimate PC, 5.0 seems to be about the minimum standard for earning respect, to the chagrin of some.

"Leave it to Microsoft to quantify everything," wrote one software developer who received a score of 1.0 on his seven-year-old, formerly top-of-the-line PC. "The experience used to be emotional. There was the gentle purr of a power supply fan with the scent of plastics in the air. Those days are over. My Windows Experience is now a cold, calculated number."

One of those who did manage to achieve the coveted number 5.9 is Logan Greenlee, a technology consultant from Boston who built his own cutting-edge PC. He says achieving such a high score is mainly a matter of careful planning—and a willingness to spend the cash.

"Cutting any corners will ultimately impact the (overall) score," Greenlee says. "You need to pick the best components for each subsystem." With the right components, you can build a 5.9 PC for around $2,500, he says, although it’s easy to spend a lot more, especially if you don’t build your own.

"There is no real upper limit," adds Gerz. Gaming is what often drives people to crave the fastest PC possible. "In order to play the latest games, you need to have the latest hardware. The video card is especially important. It's often the most expensive part of the machine."

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What does it take?

So what monster hardware do you need to achieve a 5.9? The most common area where PCs fall short is their gaming graphics subscore. At the time of this writing, all nine people with scores of 5.9 on ShareYourScore.com used a top-of-the-line video card from ATI or NVIDIA with at least 512 megabytes (MB) of graphics memory. Many used a motherboard that allows them connect two video cards at once, doubling their PC’s ability to process 3-D graphics.

Other components used by those who have reported a 5.9 score include:

As more people post their index scores on ShareYourScore.com, the percentage of people achieving 5.9 is going down, not up, showing just how hard it is get a perfect score. For more information about what your own score means (assuming it’s not perfect), see Understand and improve your computer's performance in Windows Vista.

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What goes into a 5.9 PC

You can use a wide variety of different hardware components to create a PC with a perfect score of 5.9. The following table shows the components Logan Greenlee used to build his 5.9 PC.

A neat little number

To hard-core PC enthusiasts, the Windows Experience Index is just one of several ways to measure performance. They may also look at benchmark tests such as SysMark and 3DMark that some computer publications use to rate PC speed, and test how many frames per second their computer can crunch through the most demanding games. But part of the appeal of the index is its simplicity.

"I don’t think most of the high-end PC builders are going to use any single (test) as the final say on performance," Greenlee says. "I have to admit, though, it’s nice to have your system performance rolled into a neat little number."

About the author

John Swenson is a writer on the Windows team at Microsoft. In his nine years at Microsoft, he's done everything from digging up developer news for MSDN to interviewing technical leaders around the company. Previously, he was a business and technology reporter for newspapers and trade magazines.

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