Windows Exp Index dropped after I doubled my RAM??!!

Draeger

Draeger

Draeger

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Hi,

I am running a fairly old hat system but it still does what I need it to do. It consists of the following components:-

  • Asus P5K Mobo
  • Intel Q6600 G0 Stepping at stock speed
  • 4Gb Geil DDR2 800 ULL RAM
  • MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2Gb
  • Primary Hard Disk is an OCZ Vertex 2E 60Gb SSD

I decided I'd maybe squeeze out a tiny bit more 'snappiness' by doubling up my 4Gb RAM to 8Gb. So I purchased an 8Gb set of Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 - It's the CM2X2046-6400C5C type.

To get it to boot I had to fiddle with the timings in the BIOS as the Geil was sat at 4-4-4-12 and 2.1v. The Corsair wants 5-5-5-18 and 1.8v. Once it booted up it showed 8.00Gb in 'My Computer' properties as well as CPU-Z. All was well.

I ran a Windows Experience Index test update and was surprised (and annoyed) to see that with the new RAM fitted it had not only decreased my score in 'Memory Operations per Second' from 7.3 to 7.1 but for some unknown reason my 'Disk Data Transfer Rate' has dropped from 7.3 to 5.9? :eek:

What's going on there? I would have thought that doubling my memory in the system would have improved performance, not reduced it?

I iz confuzzled. :confused: Images below.

With 4x1Gb = 4Gb Geil ULL RAM

2qAOMT8.png

With 4x2Gb = 8Gb Corsair XMS2 RAM

D6uK1sM.png
 
You're running slower timings for the RAM so that would explain that drop as it won't be able to do as many operations per second even though there is more of it, I'm not sure about the drop in HDD speed though.
 
the ssd will degrade over time,till trim or garbage collection restores performance or a secure erase,my corsair force gt did it

degrade as in lower wei score,actual speed I couldn't notice any diff

it depends how well the ssd controller is at maintaining the drive
 
wazza300 said:
the ssd will degrade over time,till trim or garbage collection restores performance or a secure erase,my corsair force gt did it
Click to expand...

Yep, but I ran a WEI on the Tuesday 1st April (first image above) and it gave me the 7.3. Then after I switched RAM over this morning I ran the WEI you can see in the second image and it shows 5.9. While I can understand drive performance dropping off over time, surely it wouldn't drop in the space of a couple of days?!!

tom_e said:
You're running slower timings for the RAM so that would explain that drop as it won't be able to do as many operations per second even though there is more of it, I'm not sure about the drop in HDD speed though.
Click to expand...

Can I change the timings and increase the performance of the XMS2? Or is the Geil ULL that good that I'd be better off bunging the 4Gb back in the system instead of the 8Gb Corsair stuff?
 
You can try lowering the timings and seeing if the new stuff will still run but to be honest in anywhere other than benchmarks you won't notice the difference you'll be much better off just keeping the extra RAM.
 
try reducing your pagefile

8gb of ram will reserve 8gb of ssd space now,so reduce it down to 2gb,disabling s3sleep will also free up 6-8gb of space,it might be affecting wei score

you might do the lower timings if you use more dram voltage
 
tom_e said:
You can try lowering the timings and seeing if the new stuff will still run but to be honest in anywhere other than benchmarks you won't notice the difference you'll be much better off just keeping the extra RAM.
Click to expand...

So in terms of 'real world performance' the 8Gb @ 5-5-5-18/1.8v should be better than the 4Gb @ 4-4-4-12/2.1v? I'm trying not to get too hung up on benchmark figures but I'm paranoid :p and disappointed about the apparent drop.

wazza300 said:
try reducing your pagefile

8gb of ram will reserve 8gb of ssd space now,so reduce it down to 2gb,disabling s3sleep will also free up 6-8gb of space,it might be affecting wei score

you might do the lower timings if you use more dram voltage
Click to expand...

Cool, I'll give that a go and report back. Ta. :)
 
Draeger said:
So in terms of 'real world performance' the 8Gb @ 5-5-5-18/1.8v should be better than the 4Gb @ 4-4-4-12/2.1v? I'm trying not to get too hung up on benchmark figures but I'm paranoid :p and disappointed about the apparent drop.
Click to expand...

Yep, That's the long and short of it.
 
wazza300 said:
disabling s3sleep will also free up 6-8gb of space,it might be affecting wei score
Click to expand...

Reduced Pagefile to 2048 for both initial and max size settings. It's freed up a fat load of space on the SSD. I didn't even clock that had changed until you mentioned it!

gvIVtUO.png


How does one disable s3sleep?
 
Ok, with the Pagefile set to 2Gb and a bit of disk clean up work done the WEI is now showing 7.0, bit happier. :)

vZx5Acu.png
 
RAM quantity isn't related to RAM performance, this is something a lot of people get confused about. RAM quantity basically stops your Over grinding to a halt when you have a number of applications open that are demanding RAM usage. If the programs you're using are requiring more RAM than you have, then things will be getting swapped between the RAM and pagefile, which tanks performance. More RAM mitigates this, but in and of itself doesn't actually increase performance.

So what you've effectively done is replaced your RAM with some slower stuff. Outside of that though, WEI is junk anyway and not worth paying attention to.
 
Ignore what the experience index says, its only purpose is to show people who have no clue about PC's, roughly how decent a laptop is when they are perusing the purple shirts place, and even then it doesn't do a very good job. Enjoy your upgrade. :) /thread
 
As poor as peeps claim WEI is it is consistent.

I used to see 8.2 on my SSD but it drops to 7.9 after long use.

SSD's slow down when 50% full (Sandforce controllers and no doubt others) and even a clean install did not get me back to 8.2 till I secure erased it, AFAIR it was 8.0 or 8.1 before that.

You can ignore it and just use the PC or if it really bothers you clock/tighten settings to get CPU/Ram back up but it takes a lot to even budge 0.1.
 
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