Help with memory benchmark

My Toshiba Qosmio gets a WEI memory score of 5.9 and while it measures memory bandwidth, afaik it also counts the net amount of memory minus whatever is shared by graphics. The Nvidia chipset and dual 9800m gts graphics card shares quite a bit of memory. I am wondering exactly how my memory bandwidth according to winsat stacks up against others.

http://www.adminxp.com/windowsvista/index.php?aid=228
To run the winsat memory bandwidth test run a command prompt as administrator and type winsat mem. Also post your current WEI memory score and amount of memory. I don't think DDR3 or DDR2 makes a difference in the scores.

 

i upgrade my ram from CL5 to CL4 and have a noticeable improvement on benchmark as well real world applications, but WEI remains same.

 

AFAIK, if the net amount of memory minus what is shared by graphics isn't above a certain amount your score will be limited regardless of the bandwidth benchmark. No matter how how high I raise my FSB and memory bandwidth, my WEI memory score never goes above 5.9.

 

I am considering upgrading to more memory but those 4gb 1066 DDR3 sodimm's are expensive. Going from 4gb to 6gb by swapping one of my 2gb sticks with a 4 would cost more than any upgrade so far. Only paid $200 for my CPU and $129 for SSD--The cheapest 4gb CAS 7 DDR3 SODIMM I can find is $225.

 

I mainly want some winsat mem bandwidth scores to compare to mine to see if my memory bandwidth sucks or the 5.9 WEI memory score is because I simply don't have enough memory because the GPU's are hogging so much of it. I'm hoping it is the latter because I can fix it by buying a 4gb stick to replace one of the 2's to bring it up to 6gb total.

 

It only takes 6 seconds to run and I just need someone with a higher WEI memory score than 5.9, has Win7 and 4gb RAM to post. It is easy, you don't have to download anything, start>accessories>right click on command prompt and run as administrator>type winsat mem>hit enter

 

lower latency with hyperX doesn't increase WEI but mem benchmark from other software did improve and real applications get faster.

 

3608.28MB/s is what I get with 4gb DDR2 @667mhz.
I can overclock it if you want. Also I ran this on battery power if that makes a difference.

 

PC2-6400 4GB @ 5-6-6-18 Timings.


PC2-6400 4GB @ 5-5-5-15 Timings (Small performance yield.)

 

I guess that confirms that my WEI memory score is capped at 5.9 because it calculates my total memory minus 1663mb that is shared by graphics since cataclysm gets 7.0 for memory with 5349mb/s and my system gets 5.9 with 5900mb/s.

 

Odd why on earth would it decide to cap? I've never known it to do that, unless windows has gone ahead and got its own ddr2 scores and ddr3 scores individual?

 

why should it not decide to cap. why should done with less memory get the same result as one with more memory. it obviously matters for the full system performance, having more ram. and this weights it's part into WEI.

why not? does one with 1gb of fast ram have a faster pc than one with 6gb of a bit slower ram? most likely, not.

 

yes, it caps memory scores based on the amount of memory minus what is shared by graphics. I think this is right because I get occasional low memory warnings to close programs to prevent data loss when playing Crysis or GTAIV.

 

I definately agree, however we both have the same amount of memory with his being higher in performance (not much higher but its still there)

My graphics card also has 1.7gb of ram assigned to it, im still just a bit puzzled as to why his scores are not the same/higher then my own.

Is all 4gb of ram usuable? I beleive mine is.

 

haven't seen your gpu, thus thought you have more memory free..

 

Sorry your right, i should have also included, but im fairly certain even though there is this assignment, i can utilise all 4gb of ram (well 3.4 gb's in my case because the OS isnt going anywhere.)

 

Open the WEI page and click on "view and print details" and it will tell you how much system memory is shared by graphics. Mine shows 1663mb.

 

Shared system memory 1791 MB

Hmm mines even more, 2301 in total or something like that.

 

I think that Windows is subtracting 1663mb from 4096 for my dual 9800m gts's and another 256mb for the 9400m g chipset for a total of 2177mb of RAM.

 

Thats really strange, whats your task manager looking like?

 

This is at pretty much idle...

 

better post the resource monitor memory tab, there you see how much goes away for hardware reserved stuff.

like this:

 

Here are both of mine for comparisons sake, i have noticed on your task man sgil that only 3.8gb is adressed?

Are you on 64bit?

 

you have only 1mb hw reserved. now lets see gilmore.

 

I'm pretty sure that 256mb is hardware reserved for Nvidia chipset.

 

so he has in total 4095 MB ram, you have 3838 MB.

that means he has 6.7% more ram than you and what are the differences in WEI again? 5.9 -> 7.0?

well, that's hard but it looks like they do some <4000 => 5.9max.. or such. no clue. one would have to ask the developers how the result comes out that way.

and, just in case. both 64bit? or one 64bit one 32bit? would make a difference, as 64bit needs a bit more ram.

 

I'm using 64bit Windows 7 Ultimate.

 

I think it is capped at 5.9 for anything less than 4096 of RAM on a 64 bit system regardless of performance and rounds to the nearest 256mb size. Since my Nvidia chipset system has 258mb hardware reserved it puts my system @<4096. Whereas cataclysm only has 1mb reserved, his system is roundable to the nearest 256mb size so his system is recognized at the 4096mb threshold.

 

yeah, looks like it.

haven't noticed from his posts if he has 64bit, though..

 

Yeah i am on 64 bit, it adressed 3.5gb previously, but yeah seems there is both dedicated system ram to hardware and shared, and your integrated GPU has stolen the score from you!.

 

The Alienware M17x has the same chipset but I believe they can disable the 9400m g in their BIOS. holli f has 4gb 1333mhz ram and only gets 5.9 also. I wonder if he disabled his 9400m in the BIOS and reran the WEI assessment, his memory score would go up?

 

Its possible, can you disable your integrated?, if your running on dedicated try go to device manager and do a quick disable from that even?

Dont forget to reboot,

 

yeah, would be nice to find out..

 

No, I can't disable the integrated chip but Alienware M17x can, I've posed the question in one of their forums.

 

ok. can't wait for the results.

 

I PM'd Mandrake who owns an M17x with the 9400m chipset and he said he gets 5.9 memory score with hybrid graphics enabled and 7.3 with only the discreet. He is using 4gb of Kingston HyperX 5-5-5-15 1333mhz memory and gets 6165.45 MB/s on winsat disk.

 

and we hit the jackpot!

<4gb ram gets limited to 5.9 points (within some rounding).

a bit unfair in gilmore's case, but understandable anyways.

 

does it matter? WEI is anyways inaccurate... i get 6.1 with 4GB of RAM...

 

Although far fetched, WEI can offer some minor insight to system performance (especially for people new to the whole experience of owning a computer, yes...they do exist), so its good to know that the WEI score is actually being calculated properly, in this case we were dealing with a WEI limitation which we couldn't explain why, but now we can.

Nice work peops,

 

it isn't. don't state it again and again.

edit: and yes, i will reply like that everytime.

 

Hey everyone, Great detective work - just finished reading the thread and had to see what my system was doing too.

Yesterday, in another thread I ran this command and got arount 4700 for the Memory Performance score in 'winsat mem'.

Today, after a reboot I get:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>winsat mem
Windows System Assessment Tool
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Running: System memory performance assessment ''
> Run Time 00:00:05.09
> Memory Performance 5238.97 MB/s
> Total Run Time 00:00:06.54

C:\Windows\system32>


However, what I curious about is since I have 8GB of RAM should I be getting a higher score than 5.9 too? My reserved is 33MB so I have way above the 4GB threshold that seems to limit the scores to 5.9.

Also, if I keep running the command winsat mem, the score keeps getting lower and lower - does anyone else find this too?

If I can do something that will allow Win 7 x64 to better utilize the hardware, I'm all for it!

BTW, this is Dual Channel 2x 4GB PC28500 DDR2 200 pin sodimms with CAS 5,5,5,18 latency reported by CPUz, if it matters.

 

hehe i have 4gb, 4747.53 MB/s and get 7.1.

must be my 32bit win7

 

What are your system specs tiller?

 

sgilmore62, running:

P8400 with 8GB RAM (DDR2) and Win 7 x64 with a Hitachi 7K500 Sony VAIO with nVidia GeForce 9300M GS video card. Anything else you need?

 

Do you have Nvidia chipset or Intel?

 

sgilmore62,

Sorry, Intel, yeah PM45 chipset with ICH9-M.

 

Try running winsat features it will show how much memory the OS sees.

 

Here it is:

C:\Windows\system32>winsat features
Windows System Assessment Tool
> DWM running... leaving it on
> System processor power policy saved and set to 'max performance'
> Running: Feature Enumeration ''
> Gathering System Information
> Operating System : 6.1 Build-7600
> Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P8400
@ 2.26GHz
> TSC Frequency : 0
> Number of Processors : 1
> Number of Cores : 2
> Number of CPUs : 2
> Number of Cores per Processor : 2
> Number of CPUs Per Core : 1
> Cores have logical CPUs : NO
> L1 Cache and line Size : 32768 64
> L2 Cache and line Size : 3145728 64
> Total physical mem available to the OS : 7.96 GB (8,555,393,024 bytes)
> Adapter Description : NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS
> Adapter Manufacturer : NVIDIA
> Adapter Driver Version : 8.15.11.8656
> Adapter Driver Date (yy/mm/dd) : 2009\7\29
> Has DX9 or better : Yes
> Has Pixel shader 2.0 or better : Yes
> Has LDDM Driver : Yes
> Dedicated (local) video memory : 241.375MB
> System memory dedicated as video memory : 0MB
> System memory shared as video memory : 3582.25MB
> Primary Monitor Size : 1680 X 945 (1587600 total pixels)
> WinSAT is Official : Yes
> Run Time 00:00:00.00
> Total Run Time 00:00:00.83
> The System processor power policy was restored

C:\Windows\system32>

 

I looked at the xml code from my last WEI assessment by going computer\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore\ folder and saw this:

 

<MemoryScore5.9</MemoryScore
CpuScore>7.3/CpuScore
- LimitsApplied
- MemoryScore
LimitApplied Friendly="Physical memory available to the OS is less than 4.0GB-64MB on a 64-bit OS : limit mem score to 5.9" Relation="LT"4227858432/LimitApplied
/MemoryScore
/LimitsApplied
/WinSPR
- Metrics
- MemoryMetrics
Bandwidth units="MB/s">5988.62686</Bandwidth>
MemoryMetrics