WEI - Is it worth the bother?

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  1. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #11

    Yeah, it's kind of a backscratch for the hardware community. I imagine tens of millions of dollars have been spent on HD, RAM, and video card updates by a lot of people who are feeling inferior due to their WEI--when they would never have upgraded a lick in the absence of the tool.
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  2. Posts : 11,990
    Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit
       #12

    whs said:
    It is a good tool for salesmen approaching the innocent.
    Exactly. Well stated.
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  3. Posts : 2,528
    Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
       #13

    Ugh, WEI is mildy imformative and a decent first step to see how well your computer can handle various tasks. Some people are insanely obsessed with it yes, but that doen't make it "worthless".

    In fact it appropriately identified the OPs graphics card as somewhat sub par. But if he doesn;t game with it then that's fine. It's for the user to decide. It's a general comparison of the capability between a large range of hardware options and from what I've seen it actually does a decent job when not expected to be "accurate" to the 0.1 level :/

    One thing the OP is a bit confused on though is that WEI does not test how you have options in W7 set up. So turning on or off the eye candy does not change the score. The score is a test of the low-level graphics cabability of your hardware and drivers. IF it gets a really bad score like 3.5 or something you /might/ consider turning off aero for example.

    ANother example of it "working" is that if you have AHCI on you will generally get a better SSD score. If you really want to know HOW much better than sure, run an SSD benchmark, but the WEI also indicates if that driver option helped or hurt.

    So while hardly the be all end all of performace indicators, it does work for it's intended purpose and what's nice it there is a single version auto-installed on every w7 machine which gives an extremely level playing field when comparing systems.
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  4. Posts : 568
    Win7 x64 Ultimate SP1
       #14

    All you need is a score of 2.0 or better to run Aero.
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  5. Posts : 296
    Windows 7 Professional
       #15

    @ prospero

    If it makes you feel better, my hard drive gets a rating of 5.9 on my system. The rest of my system is in and around 7's and Windows gives me a final WEI score of 5.9 for my whole system.
    Last edited by Nemix; 17 Jul 2010 at 02:22.
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  6. Posts : 2,963
    Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit
       #16

    Yeah, I get a 3.1 and aero does great on my computer. I also agree with the guy that says people have spent a lot of money trying to raise their score. Apparently, you can change the video card on my laptop, but the part must come from Dell or another Vostro 1500/1700. Also, Dell has recently stopped selling the part. I was at one point considering buying the nVidia card option for a little over $100, just to see the score go up. I don't play WoW or any other newer game so it would have been spent on basically increasing the score from 3.1 to 4.x. Then after a good night's sleep, I realized I was temporarily suffering from a case of "the stupids."
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  7. Posts : 11,990
    Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit
       #17

    Petey7 said:
    Yeah, I get a 3.1 and aero does great on my computer. I also agree with the guy that says people have spent a lot of money trying to raise their score. Apparently, you can change the video card on my laptop, but the part must come from Dell or another Vostro 1500/1700. Also, Dell has recently stopped selling the part. I was at one point considering buying the nVidia card option for a little over $100, just to see the score go up. I don't play WoW or any other newer game so it would have been spent on basically increasing the score from 3.1 to 4.x. Then after a good night's sleep, I realized I was temporarily suffering from a case of "the stupids."
    Very well said.
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  8. Posts : 6,857
    Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1 (desktop)
       #18

    ignatzatsonic said:
    It gives people with a certain personality type something to obsess over and brag about. Seems to be a lot of that personality type around.

    It has little to no real world significance.
    Agreed!

    whs said:
    It is a good tool for salesmen approaching the innocent.
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  9. Posts : 7,683
    Windows 10 Pro
       #19

    Nemix77 said:
    If it makes you feel better, my hard drive gets a rating of 5.9 on my system. The rest of my system is in the mid 7's and Windows gives me a final WEI score of 5.9 for my whole system.
    Same here.

    ignatzatsonic said:
    Yeah, it's kind of a backscratch for the hardware community. I imagine tens of millions of dollars have been spent on HD, RAM, and video card updates by a lot of people who are feeling inferior due to their WEI--when they would never have upgraded a lick in the absence of the tool.
    Hmmm... I might need to get that SSD drive so my score can go up
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  10. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #20

    An SSD will give you better than 7.0 - but I don't think you want to buy an SSD for that reason. There are better arguments for it.
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