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Increasing memory base score
The performance information and tools screen has been a place of wonder and frustration for me. My Inspiron 530 came with 2GB and the base score was 4.8, which I guess is on the good side. Skipping the superfluous details, now I have 4GB and the memory speed is 800Mhz. I realize that 32-bit Vista addresses something like 3.1GB but that is still a lot more that where I started. So why hasn't my memory base score changed? If adding RAM won't increase the measurement of "memory operations per second", what does it take? If my memory speed had dropped from 800 to 667, the slower speed of these DRAMs, I could kind of follow that too. All the other base scores are over 5 so what is with the memory? Has anyone else experienced this?
keithg2
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April 18th, 2009 11:00
Adding more RAM won't increase your score. I'm not too sure what does help the score. If you went from 667MHz to 800MHz I would think you would see a small increase in scoring if you refreshed it. Personally, I don't go by the Vista Performance scoring. I go by feel and how my system performs day to day. If my Vista score is low but my system performs like I expect, I throw the Vista score out of the window.
Davet50
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April 18th, 2009 13:00
I never put much stock in the vista perfromance score. When I had 4 gigs of 800 mhz ram my score was 5.4. I upped it to 8 giga @800 and my score dropped to 5.1 I do know the memory timings are different so that might have something to do with it. But to add more fuel to the issue, With my 4 gigs in Win 7 my score was only 5.9, Now my score is tops a 7.1 so what is going on there is another mystery.
rmmccoy
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April 18th, 2009 13:00
Actually the speed always was 800 but there is a story there. The machine came with 2GB of 800Mhz RAM. I purchased 2GB and the speed dropped to 667! After some experiementation I found that the DRAMs have to be all the same brand, or at least that is out it turned out for me. The two "old" sticks would run at 800 and the two new ones would run at 800 but together they would only do 667. So since the sale on RAM was still on I bought 2GB more of the "new" RAM and the system is happy to run at 800Mhz. I guess I was expected too much from this "new" performance guage. I presumed that bumping up the memory would increase the number but that has not been the case. Though it does cause me to wonder just how this thing calculates the base score and what it would take to change it. Something beyond my realm of knowledge, apparently.
keithg2
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April 19th, 2009 12:00
Glad to hear you sorted out the speed issues with 2GB of new RAM. On the subject of Vista Performance changing when adding RAM, just for giggles, I pulled my 4x1GB sticks of 667MHz in my 410 and installed 2x2GB sticks of 800MHz. With the 667MHz RAM, Vista showed a 5.4 score for the RAM. After installing the 800MHz and rerunning the score, Vista showed a 5.6 score for the RAM. So, there is a bit of a scoring increase when you increase the RAM speed. However, simply "adding" more RAM of the same speed does not change the score.