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How to understand all the Intel chip types?

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rssapphire:
But if you look at the WPI of most budget (or business) Win7 machines (frequently 3 or less) it's probably too hard to sell/explain why machine X doesn't really totally suck because the slow part (which sets the score...) isn't really relevant/detrimental to the required application/intended usage.
-Stoic Joker (November 15, 2010, 11:32 AM)
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I very carefully selected a budget machine last January as I needed a lot of processing bang for the buck ($400 in this case). The WEI is only 3.2 because the lowest score (Gaming Graphics) is 3.2. I don't do games on this machine. I do work. Its full scores are: Processor: 6.3; Memory: 7.1, Graphics 3.5, Gaming Graphics: 3.2, Disk: 5.9. Average business graphics/poor gaming graphics, but LOTS of power for the buck in what matters to me. Drop out the graphics and the WEI is 5.9. As the biggest graphics stress on this machine on an average day is the aero-stuff on the desktop or occasional use of Photoshop to edit pictures, this is fine by me. However, officially the machine is a lowly 3.2 because it's not a system the average gamer would want.  As you point out, the WEI thing is helpful but only if you know what you want to use the box for and you understand you have to look at the subscores and ignore the single number. How many people in the general computer buying public are going to know to do that?

Stoic Joker:
How many people in the general computer buying public are going to know to do that?
-rssapphire (November 15, 2010, 01:04 PM)
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On an average to good day assuming they all brought their "educated" friends along I'd say about 4.

But seriously...

I spec'ed the business machine I'm using here at work about 3 or so years ago (for the XP->Vista transition) and it's a 3.0. For the same reason as you - I skimped on the video because it wasn't necessary. Next lowest item is the (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+) CPU at 4.7. Only time it ever lags is if I run 2 VPCs at the same time...But running 3 OSs on 2GB of RAM is a lot to ask of the poor thing.

kyrathaba:
The WEI on my Inspiron 15 is 3.4 -- but I love the laptop.  It's responsive.  Never had it show notable lag.

JavaJones:
Yeah, I never quite got the "slowest piece sets the score" thing. Granted your slowest hardware could greatly influence your overall performance, depending on what you use your system for (e.g. if you don't do gaming, a slow graphics card may not matter much, though see recent trends with GPU acceleration of common web browsing for some caveats...). I do think though that the individual scores, particularly CPU, could still be valuable.

- Oshyan

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