Vista - base score lower than expected

I'm setting up a new computer for a friend. It has a Sempron 3200 running at
1.8GHz and 512 GB RAM (shared with the video, I think) with Vista Home Basic
(bottom of the line, I know).

The processor score is 3.7, not great but acceptable. But the RAM score is
only 2.0. Why is it so low? It's all new equipment from a computer
superstore. I don't care about graphics for games, because there will be no
games on this computer. But apparently something about the RAM is cutting
overall performance by 46%!

Is half a gig of ram considered inadequate these days? What can I do to
speed up this thing?

512mb of RAM shared between the system and the video is pretty much
inadequate for any kind of reasonable Vista experience.

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"Paul Pedersen" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:%23InofSduHHA.3588@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I'm setting up a new computer for a friend. It has a Sempron 3200 running
> at 1.8GHz and 512 GB RAM (shared with the video, I think) with Vista Home
> Basic (bottom of the line, I know).
>
> The processor score is 3.7, not great but acceptable. But the RAM score is
> only 2.0. Why is it so low? It's all new equipment from a computer
> superstore. I don't care about graphics for games, because there will be
> no games on this computer. But apparently something about the RAM is
> cutting overall performance by 46%!
>
> Is half a gig of ram considered inadequate these days? What can I do to
> speed up this thing?
>
>
>

My 512MB of RAM only scores 2.0 also.

Vista Home Basic runs fine on that, but runs better with 2GB of RAM.

Upgrading the hardware to improve the score will also make the computer
better able to handle any future upgrade to other versions of Vista.

KB

"Paul Pedersen" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:%23InofSduHHA.3588@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I'm setting up a new computer for a friend. It has a Sempron 3200 running
> at 1.8GHz and 512 GB RAM (shared with the video, I think) with Vista Home
> Basic (bottom of the line, I know).
>
> The processor score is 3.7, not great but acceptable. But the RAM score is
> only 2.0. Why is it so low? It's all new equipment from a computer
> superstore. I don't care about graphics for games, because there will be
> no games on this computer. But apparently something about the RAM is
> cutting overall performance by 46%!
>
> Is half a gig of ram considered inadequate these days? What can I do to
> speed up this thing?
>
>
>

Hi Paul,

Yes, incredible as it may seem (especially to those of us who remember
multi-user systems running on 128k of memory), 512MB is pretty much the
lower edge of acceptable, for Vista. Web browsing, email and office apps
will all run fine in 512MB but you won't see blazing performance. A score of
2.0 sounds about right to me.

It can also be affected by the speed of your memory - faster memeory will
get a higher score. 512MB of PC5300 memory will get a higher score than if
you had 512MB of PC2100 memory. Also the speed of the memory bus (ie,
Front-side Buss or FSB) - a machine with a 1066MHz FSB will get a higher
memory score than a machine with a 533MHz FSB, becuse the performance test
can perform more read-and-write memory operations per second.

The Sempron is a "budget" processor, so is usually found in machines that
are assembled with a goal of economy rather thanr blazing performance. For
the common uses I mentioned, I suspect your machine will run just fine, you
won't be frustrated by it. But it won't be a speed-demon.

Just for comparison, my deskktop box has 3GB of PC4200 RAM, and gets a
memory score of 5.4 (and overall score 5.2). I'm usually running a couple of
Virtual PCs, and compiling in Visual Studio - both memory-intensive
activities, so the extra memory performance helps. It's wild overkill, for
email and using Word :-) When I first installed Vista I had an overall score
of 2.4 - I had a pretty basic video card which was anomolously low-scoring.
I replaced the video card with a (still pretty moddest) 7900GS video card
and the score leapt to 5.9!

Hope this helps,
Andrew

Thanks to all for the replies.

Yes, at one time 128kB was a lot. I started programming on a Commodore 64,
and people said, "What will you do with all that memory? And it has color
too!"

This is not a development machine, but it will be used for small to moderate
sized desktop publishing tasks, plus other desktop apps, while also acting
as a low-moderate volume file server to three or four other machines. So
performance is a concern.

I won't be able to change the motherboard or processor, and overclocking is
not really something I want to risk on a business computer.

How much improvement can I expect to see by just increasing the amount of
RAM?

Thanks.



"Andrew McLaren" <andrew@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:72F7356B-0B03-4F89-B0D9-21518C88C257@microsoft.com...
> Hi Paul,
>
> Yes, incredible as it may seem (especially to those of us who remember
> multi-user systems running on 128k of memory), 512MB is pretty much the
> lower edge of acceptable, for Vista. Web browsing, email and office apps
> will all run fine in 512MB but you won't see blazing performance. A score
> of 2.0 sounds about right to me.
>
> It can also be affected by the speed of your memory - faster memeory will
> get a higher score. 512MB of PC5300 memory will get a higher score than if
> you had 512MB of PC2100 memory. Also the speed of the memory bus (ie,
> Front-side Buss or FSB) - a machine with a 1066MHz FSB will get a higher
> memory score than a machine with a 533MHz FSB, becuse the performance test
> can perform more read-and-write memory operations per second.
>
> The Sempron is a "budget" processor, so is usually found in machines that
> are assembled with a goal of economy rather thanr blazing performance. For
> the common uses I mentioned, I suspect your machine will run just fine,
> you won't be frustrated by it. But it won't be a speed-demon.
>
> Just for comparison, my deskktop box has 3GB of PC4200 RAM, and gets a
> memory score of 5.4 (and overall score 5.2). I'm usually running a couple
> of Virtual PCs, and compiling in Visual Studio - both memory-intensive
> activities, so the extra memory performance helps. It's wild overkill, for
> email and using Word :-) When I first installed Vista I had an overall
> score of 2.4 - I had a pretty basic video card which was anomolously
> low-scoring. I replaced the video card with a (still pretty moddest)
> 7900GS video card and the score leapt to 5.9!
>
> Hope this helps,
> Andrew

"Paul Pedersen" <nospam@no.spam> wrote ...
> This is not a development machine, but it will be used for small to
> moderate sized desktop publishing tasks, plus other desktop apps, while
> also acting as a low-moderate volume file server to three or four other
> machines. So performance is a concern.

Well it's a rule-of-thumb guide, but if desktop publishing includes apps
like Adobe InDesign, or similar, I'd definitely recommend you get at least
1GB. And if you want to run a file server as well, start thinking in terms
of 2GB. Vista will efficiently utilise any spare memory as cache, so it
won't go to waste; ie, you can't have "too much" memory.

512MB can be adequate for a single user running simple desktop apps - but
not much more.

You'll need to examine your motherboard (or computer's manual) to see how
many memory slots it has, and what slots are already occupied. Ideally you'd
add say, 2 x 1GB chips to your existing 512MB, for a total of 2.5GB - rather
than have to throw the 512 MB away, and replace it with a pair of 1GB chips
for total 2GB.

Hard to redict what score you'll get. But many users report significant
boost in performance by going from 512MB to 1GB - it takes Vista out of the
"packed in tight" range, into "breathing freely".

Cheers,
Andrew

Yes .5GB is considered bare minimum for VISTA. It works okay with 1GB but 2Gb
seems to be the sweet spot.
--
Paul


"Paul Pedersen" wrote:

> I'm setting up a new computer for a friend. It has a Sempron 3200 running at
> 1.8GHz and 512 GB RAM (shared with the video, I think) with Vista Home Basic
> (bottom of the line, I know).
>
> The processor score is 3.7, not great but acceptable. But the RAM score is
> only 2.0. Why is it so low? It's all new equipment from a computer
> superstore. I don't care about graphics for games, because there will be no
> games on this computer. But apparently something about the RAM is cutting
> overall performance by 46%!
>
> Is half a gig of ram considered inadequate these days? What can I do to
> speed up this thing?
>
>
>
>

I just noticed, you're also sharing system memory with the video adaptor. In
that case, you'll almost certainly need more memory! Get as much as you can
afford.

Thanks to all.

I think I'll replace the existing 512MB PC5300 with a 2GB PC6400. That will
still leave room for future expansion.



"Paul Pedersen" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:%23InofSduHHA.3588@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> I'm setting up a new computer for a friend. It has a Sempron 3200 running
> at 1.8GHz and 512 GB RAM (shared with the video, I think) with Vista Home
> Basic (bottom of the line, I know).
>
> The processor score is 3.7, not great but acceptable. But the RAM score is
> only 2.0. Why is it so low? It's all new equipment from a computer
> superstore. I don't care about graphics for games, because there will be
> no games on this computer. But apparently something about the RAM is
> cutting overall performance by 46%!
>
> Is half a gig of ram considered inadequate these days? What can I do to
> speed up this thing?
>
>
>

"Andrew McLaren" <andrew@fakeaddress.com> wrote in message
news:72F7356B-0B03-4F89-B0D9-21518C88C257@microsoft.com...

> Just for comparison, my deskktop box has 3GB of PC4200 RAM, and gets a
> memory score of 5.4 (and overall score 5.2). I'm usually running a couple
> of Virtual PCs, and compiling in Visual Studio - both memory-intensive
> activities, so the extra memory performance helps. It's wild overkill, for
> email and using Word :-) When I first installed Vista I had an overall
> score of 2.4 - I had a pretty basic video card which was anomolously
> low-scoring. > I replaced the video card with a (still pretty moddest)
> 7900GS video card and the score leapt to 5.9!

My Vista machine scores only 4.7 for the Experience Index even though it is
extremely powerful with dual Xeons due to the latency of the FB-DIMMS. The
memory score is 4.7 whereas all other scores are 5.9. I don't really
understand why Vista simply uses the lowest the score to determine to
overall index as 4.7 is not indicative of this machine's overall
capabilities. Surely some kind of weighted average would be more
representative.

--
And loving it,

-Q
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