Check PC Performance Details with WinSAT in Windows 7 or Vista

Since Windows Vista, including in Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows System Assessment Tool (WinSAT) has been added into the operating system. WinSAT is a free benchmarking tool that measures various computer performance ratings, characteristics and capabilities, and display the ratings as Windows Experience Index or WEI score.

Normally, WEI rating score is just a few generalized numbers (which can be manipulated) of a relative performance scale, which do not give in-depth details about the computer performance. For advanced users who want to know the very details performance ratings for each components measured by WinSAT, there is trick to display detailed performance rating scores.

To view the PC performance details with WinSAT, open Command Prompt window as administrator, and enter the following command:

winsat formal -v >> output.txt

What the command does is it will run formal assessment on all system devices or sub-components to calculate the performance benchmarks, which is also used to calculate Windows Experience Index. All performance ratings will be saved and recorded in output.txt in the current directory. Unlike WEI, the content in the output file is comprehensive and detailed.

One of the example report from WinSAT is as below.

> Command Line 'winsat  formal -v'
> Running the Formal Assessment
> DWM running... turnning DWM off
> System processor power policy saved and set to 'max performance'
> Running: Feature Enumeration v1.0.0.0 ''
> Gathering System Information
> Operating System                        : 6.1 Build-7000
> Processor                               : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     E4500  @ 2.20GHz
> TSC Frequency                           : 3673500000
> 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                  : 2097152  64
> Total physical mem available to the OS  : 5.99 GB (6,439,579,648 bytes)
> Adapter Description                     : ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT (Microsoft Corporation WDDM 1.1)
> Adapter Manufacturer                    : ATI Technologies Inc.
> Adapter Driver Version                  : 8.53.2.12
> Adapter Driver Date (yy/mm/dd)          : 2008\11\13
> Has DX9 or better                       : Yes
> Has Pixel shader 2.0 or better          : Yes
> Has LDDM Driver                         : Yes
> Dedicated (local) video memory          : 241.594MB
> System memory dedicated as video memory : 0MB
> System memory shared as video memory    : 2815.09MB
> Primary Monitor Size                    : 1920 X 1080  (2073600 total pixels)
> WinSAT is Official                       : Yes
> CPU LZW Compression                          138.72 MB/s
> CPU AES256 Encryption                        83.63 MB/s
> CPU Vista Compression                        389.00 MB/s
> CPU SHA1 Hash                                659.23 MB/s
> Uniproc CPU LZW Compression                  68.89 MB/s
> Uniproc CPU AES256 Encryption                42.67 MB/s
> Uniproc CPU Vista Compression                194.23 MB/s
> Uniproc CPU SHA1 Hash                        329.92 MB/s
> Memory Performance                           5765.81 MB/s
> Direct3D Batch Performance                   234.66 F/s
> Direct3D Alpha Blend Performance             235.59 F/s
> Direct3D ALU Performance                     89.68 F/s
> Direct3D Texture Load Performance            95.26 F/s
> Direct3D Batch Performance                   225.08 F/s
> Direct3D Alpha Blend Performance             230.11 F/s
> Direct3D ALU Performance                     81.39 F/s
> Direct3D Texture Load Performance            79.46 F/s
> Direct3D Geometry Performance                43.78 F/s
> Direct3D Geometry Performance                41.36 F/s
> Direct3D Geometry Performance                29.70 F/s
> Direct3D Geometry Performance                42.48 F/s
> Direct3D Constant Buffer Performance         119.06 F/s
> Video Memory Throughput                      6919.56 MB/s
> Dshow Video Encode Time                      5.54336 s
> Media Foundation Decode Time                 0.95649 s
> Disk  Sequential 64.0 Read                   81.09 MB/s          6.2
> Disk  Random 16.0 Read                       1.20 MB/s          3.2
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes     5.976 ms          5.7
> Latency: 95th Percentile                     64.231 ms          1.9
> Latency: Maximum                             239.770 ms          7.2
> Average Read Time with Random Writes         12.804 ms          2.8

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 1:52 am and is filed under Tips & Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.