Vista Ratings

[Paul Adams]

The rating system currently goes up to 5.9, as has been pointed out.

It is not a static rating system as in a few years' time almost everything will be at maximum rating and it would have no value in discerning between systems - unless a system's given rating were to be reduced over time, which would not make much sense.
(Kind of in the way games being rated out of 10, or as a percentage is meaningless after a few months.)

The purpose of WinSAT is to provide a single "number" which gives an indication of your system's readiness to run different pieces of software, and manufacturers then just need to give ratings for "required" and "recommended".
It is an "at a glance" single variable which anyone can see, and it does make sense for it to be the lowest of all the sub-ratings as that is your "weakest link"

Most kids go for 3DMark as their e-peen

The idea is that this single number is something any "non-geek" can shop around with, rather than having to be aware that their Ninjamatic x5000GTSLi with DDR6 RAM and their CoreBlimey8 dual hyperthreaded-quadcore CPU with 2TB of cache is sufficient to run Quake 10 - but only if they increase the free disk space from 13MB and replace that MCGA monitor.

[Funkstar]

I guess only time will tell how well this system works.

I guess poeple will see the 5.9 as 5.9/10, but if it is just a simple 5.9 then that makes sense.

[Shooty*]

Right, my AMD 64 single core 4000+ gets 4.2 at 2.41 ghz

5.9 for non-overclocked XFX 7800 GT 256 meg for Aero, 5.6 for 3d gaming

excuse me, my son is vomitting. BRB.

[hse180]

I got 9.9 with everything..........


















That is with a hack

[Toobad]

It is rumoured that the next release of Norton Anti-Virus will require a minimum Windows Experience Rating of 9.5. Perhaps this was a misprint and should have been 5.9 which, IMHO, sounds extremely hopeful when comparing it to their previous releases.

[Shooty*]

Heh heh heh.

I'VE JUST DONE MY FIRST OVERCLOCK!

Wahey!

*ahem*
Anyway, put a 4200+ s939 in my A8n Sli Deluxe. It got the same base score as my 4000+ single core, though I did notice a big improvement on windows start up.

OC'd it to 2.6ghz and I've gone up to a windows rating of 5.1, from 4.1! Result!

...what's the burning smell?...

[kungpo]

Just dropped in a Q6600 from an E4300 and Vista score has gone for 5.7 to 5.9!

Interestingly enough, the Q6600 is running at 2.7Ghz against the 4300 running at 3.06Ghz so the extra cores make a difference to the score.