The average user has no idea what kind of computer he really needs. The evolution of computer science, from the "home hardware" point of view, has slowed somewhat in recent years and computers are roughly all the same, except perhaps for the choice of the video card.
However, not everyone has a new computer from the last year, so measuring the hardware power of your PC and understanding if it is still good could be important.
To gain greater awareness of the type of computer you are using, Microsoft has provided a tool called Windows Performance Index .
The index, present in Windows 7 and Vista (Also in Windows 10 as we will see), provides performance scores for the 5 main components of the computer: Processor, RAM memory, Video Card, Game graphics, Primary hard disk .
NOTE: In Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 the Windows performance index (also called Windows Experience Index ) has not disappeared, but has been hidden .
To see the computer's benchmarking scores you have to open a command prompt as administrator and write the command:
winsat prepop
Then open the Powershell tool by looking for it from the Start menu, type the following command and press Enter:
Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_WinSAT
The result will show the Windows performance index scores.
To do it first, if this is complicated, you can use external tools to find computer performance scores such as ChrisPC Win Experience Index or Winaero WEI Tool
The final score, determined by the lowest score, gives an idea of how well the system will work in the various operations.
The Windows Performance Index is a tool for measuring computer performance, based on its hardware and software configuration.
Currently, the highest score that Windows assigns to any computer component is 7.9.
To read the Windows performance index score for your computer, go to the Start menu and type in the " Index " search box.
Who uses a laptop must connect the power supply otherwise the detection of the index will not be enabled.
If at the top of the screen there is the Update button, press it to rerun the check and update the evaluation.
As it is written in the Windows guide, the scores have a meaning that, in a nutshell, can be summarized as follows:
- 2.0 = Computer suitable for basic IT activities.
- 3.0 = Basic Aero effects work on Windows 7.
- 4.0 = Windows Vista or Windows 7 are absolutely compatible with the computer and work smoothly in every feature.
- 5.0 = You can use the new features of Windows 7 and multi-tasking.
- 6.0 = The computer does everything it can to do it quickly and painlessly.
- 7.0 = High-end computer on which high-intensity graphics programs can run as well as the most modern video games.
Partial scores help determine which components are newer and which ones may have changed to improve performance .
- It is unlikely that a processor will have the lowest rating, if this would mean that you are using an old computer to which all the pieces have been changed recently.
The CPU is in fact the most difficult piece to change and, in general, you change computers to renew the processor.
- RAM is the easiest piece to update, therefore, if there is little memory on the PC, increase and add new RAM on the computer.
- The video card is only important if you work with graphics programs or if you use your computer for video games.
The video card is easy to change, but it can also cost several hundred Euros.
In another article, how to optimize your computer for pc games and video games.
- The hard disk is likely to have the lowest score because the hard disk is always the slowest component of a computer.
To improve the primary hard drive score and make it high, you need to use an SSD solid state drive.
Still referring to the possibility of improving computer performance, in other articles I wrote:
- 5 parts to change on the old PC to update it and give it new life
- Make the old laptop bought a few years ago come back quickly
Below, in the performance index rating screen, you can press the link of the tips to increase the performance of the computer which are explained in the post with the tips to optimize the Windows 7 PC and make it faster.
If you want more information on your computer, you can use programs to measure computer power and hardware performance.
