Windows 7 Experience Index

Hi,

I have some questions in regards of the Windows 7 Experience Index.
Currently my system subscore is 5.2.

Processor : 7.1
Memory : 7.3
Graphics : 5.2
Gaming Graphic : 5.5
Hard Disk : 5.9

I'm using Alienware M15x, Windows Home Premium 64-bit, 8GB Ram, nVidia GTX 260M.
I remembered my Graphic and Gaming Graphic subscore used to be around 6.2. Why do I suddenly get a much lower subscore considering I did not make any changes to my system ?

Your score will update to reflect how your hardware compares to the most current hardware supported by that driver.

I wouldn't worry too much about it as WEI is just a rough guide. when i updated to the latest graphics driver i lost 2 points. (4.7) to (4.5)

check here http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us for the latest driver.

My hard drives are the weak link. They get a 5.9. Everything else get's 7.4 and 7.5. Too bad decent sized SSD's aren't under $125 like sata drives are.

Too many users get hung up over the WEI scores and ratings.

They're merely, in my opinion, artificial benchmarks from Microsoft to rate a system.

ALL hard drives will always get a 5.9 rating, regardless.

Moving up to an SSD will help the score out. But in the end, it's just a matter of "braggin' rights".

Exactly!

It certainly has helped the retailers though. It is quite easily faked and can give a wonderful impression to an unknowledgable purchaser

Too true. I mean - my netbook only has a mere 2.2 subscore, yet it's super fast! And in my case, my HD is my strong point

windows experience index is actually designed as a kinda tool for Microsoft to obtain valuable data about any hardware that Windows is run, and has likely caused more than a few unnecessary hardware upgrades i would think

The one I really don't get is why Microsoft can't just make the ratings from 1.0 - 10.0. In Vista it went up to 5.9 and in 7 it goes to 7.9. That really doesn't make any sense what so ever. Maybe, but doubtful, they'll get it right in 8 or what-ever they name the next Windows version. Just like Windows 7 isn't the 7th version of Windows.