Windows Experience Index = 7.9, then what?

Question

Say you get 7.9, which is the maximum score with windows Experience Index, with your current hardware. Next year the hardware is faster. If you already got the max score, what does it mean to upgrade to faster hardware? Will 7.9 be an obsolete irrelevant score? Will windows not take advantage of the faster hardware?

Answer 1

The score will get higher. As it already did. The first "high" score was 6.

Microsoft updates the patterns and result values accordingly.

You can find more information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_System_Assessment_Tool

By the way - this is not a real benchmark - this is just a value that is based on some benchmarks and should be understood as a measure for "user experience".

You should use real benchmarks (like 3DMark http://www.futuremark.com/, Spec http://www.spec.org) If you'd like to know how fast your system is.

Answer 2

I think what you're asking is why they raised it from 5.9 in Vista to 7.9 in 7. I'm sure they could change it upward should they want to. I personally don't take too much from the Windows Rating, there are better measurements of performance (PassMark Benchmarking Software is good http://www.passmark.com/)