Brightrev

If you've tweaked your PC, overclocked your CPU or added a faster hard drive and want to know how much difference it makes, you need a benchmark utility.  Although there are large, complex benchmark suites available, I cover a few free, easy to use utilities that generate a score for your PC and its various components.

Windows Experience Index

Windows Vista has a built-in benchmark called the Windows Experience Index that you can run at any time.  To run a Vista benchmark, click Start, type performance into the search box and click the Performance Information and Tools start menu entry.

You'll see a display similar to the following.

Click the Update My Score link to have Vista re-run the benchmark, and the View and Print Details link for some extra information.  There are lots of places where people report their WEI ratings.

Super PI

Super PI calculates Pi to a configurable number of digits and then reports calculation time.  To use Super PI, download it, unzip it to a directory and then run the Super_pi.exe executable.  Click the Calculate link, choose 1 million digits and Super PI will report the time.

There is no built-in functionality for comparing systems, but Super PI times are widely reported on the Internet, so a quick Google search will allow you to compare your times to others.  Super PI isn't  as widely used as it was in the past, but it's quick and easy to download and run, so it's worth a try.

PCPitstop

PCPitstop.com offers a free ActiveX-based benchmark and comparison utility on their website.  The ActiveX part means you'll need Internet Explorer to run the benchmarks, but the install only takes a few clicks.  Note that you'll need to right-click Internet Explorer and click Run As Administrator for this to work on Vista.

PCPitstop's results are the most useful of the utilities I test here.  They test and score each component, offer tips on improving your system and creating an account on their site allows you to track your benchmarks over time. Clicking each link gives details on that particular component.

SiSoft Sandra

Sisoft Sandra is a tool for viewing an incredible amount of information about your PC.  It also includes a benchmark tool that you can run and then compare to other systems or individual components.  After you've downloaded and installed Sandra, run the application and click Tools -> Performance Index.  The test takes about 15 minutes, which is significantly longer than the other tools.  Your PC may appear to lock up during testing, but the test will eventually complete and then you can compare numbers by using the drop down boxes. 

None of these are all-encompassing utilities, but they're all easy to use and good at giving you an idea of how a PC performs.

Comments (0)

Show/Hide comment form