How to Score Your PCs Health Using the Windows Experience Index

Patrick_Yu

If you’ve ever wondered how your PC performs under the hood—how fast your processor is, whether your graphics card can handle modern workloads, or if your storage is slowing everything down—the Windows Experience Index (WEI) is a powerful tool to understand your system’s overall “health.” While it’s not as prominently featured in modern versions of Windows as it once was, the WEI is still accessible, and you can score your PC's performance easily using PowerShell.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through:

• What PC health really means in the context of performance
• How the Windows Experience Index ranks your PC
• How to generate your own WEI score using PowerShell

By the end, you’ll be able to assess your system and know exactly where its strengths and weaknesses lie.

What is PC health? (understanding the Windows Experience Index)

“PC health” can refer to a lot of things—system stability, security, update status—but in this context, we’re talking specifically about performance. Microsoft’s Windows Experience Index provides a score based on how well your computer’s key components perform. It measures:

1. Processor (CPU) – Calculated based on how many operations per second your CPU can handle
2. Memory (RAM) – How quickly your system can access data in memory
3. Graphics – Performance of your desktop graphics, usually related to Windows UI rendering
4. Gaming graphics (GPU) – Capability for 3D business and gaming graphics
5. Primary hard disk (disk transfer rate) – Measures read/write speeds of your storage drive

Each component is scored from 1.0 to 9.9, and the overall base score is determined by the lowest subscore, not an average. This gives you a quick way to identify the weakest link in your PC’s performance.

Though the WEI interface was removed from the Control Panel after Windows 7, the scoring system still exists in Windows 10 and Windows 11—you just need a different way to access it.

How can I rank my PC’s healthiness?

To rank your PC’s performance using the Windows Experience Index, you can use a built-in Windows tool called WinSAT (Windows System Assessment Tool). This tool still runs behind the scenes in Windows and can be triggered manually to generate performance scores.

Here's the process:

1. Run the WinSAT assessment
2. Access the results
3. Interpret your score

All of this can be done using Windows PowerShell, a command-line tool that comes with Windows.

Step-by-step: how to check your PC’s WEI score using PowerShell

Let’s walk through the process.

Step 1: Open PowerShell as administrator

1. Press Windows + S and type PowerShell
2. Right-click Windows PowerShell and choose Run as administrator

You need administrator privileges to run the WinSAT tool.

Step 2: Run the Windows System Assessment Tool

Type or paste the following command into PowerShell and press Enter: winsat formal

This command runs a full system assessment, testing your CPU, memory, graphics, and disk performance. It might take a couple of minutes to complete. If you are running it on a laptop, ensure that it is plugged in as a formal assessment cannot be run while running on batteries.

You’ll see various benchmarks being run, such as:

• CPU performance
• Memory throughput
• Video encoding
• Disk I/O

Once complete, the assessment results are saved to a system file.

Step 3: View the Windows Experience Index score

After the test finishes, you can retrieve the scores using PowerShell. Run: Get-CimInstance -Query "SELECT * FROM Win32_WinSAT"

You’ll see an output similar to:

Explanation:

• CPUScore: Processor performance
• D3DScore: 3D graphics performance (gaming)
• DiskScore: Disk data transfer rate
• GraphicsScore: Desktop graphics performance
• MemoryScore: RAM performance
• WinSPRLevel: The base score — the lowest subscore, which represents your PC's overall WEI

In the example above, the base score is 8.3, determined by the disk performance.

Step 4: Understand what your scores mean

Each component of the Windows Experience Index is scored on a scale from 1.0 to 9.9. Here's how to interpret the scores in plain text:

• Scores between 1.0 and 3.9 indicate low performance. A PC in this range may struggle with modern applications, multitasking, or high-definition media. It's best suited for very basic tasks like web browsing or word processing.
• Scores between 4.0 and 5.9 are considered moderate performance. These systems can handle general productivity tasks such as email, light web browsing, and office work, but they may not perform well with gaming, content creation, or multitasking under load.
• Scores between 6.0 and 7.9 reflect good performance. Most modern applications, including some light gaming or creative tools, will run smoothly. This is typical for mid-range desktops or laptops with SSDs and decent CPUs.
• Scores between 8.0 and 9.9 indicate high performance. These systems are built for demanding tasks like gaming, video editing, 3D rendering, and heavy multitasking. If your system is in this range, it’s considered high-end.

Use these benchmarks to decide where upgrades might be beneficial. For example:

• A low disk score usually means your storage drive is a bottleneck—an SSD upgrade can help.
• A low graphics or gaming score points to a weak GPU, especially for gamers or creative professionals.
• A low memory score suggests upgrading or expanding your RAM for better multitasking.

Bonus: where are the raw results stored?

If you're curious or want to save the results, you can navigate to the XML file where WinSAT saves its data:

• Location: C:\Windows\Performance\WinSAT\DataStore
• Look for a file named similar to: [Date] Formal.Assessment (Initial).WinSAT.xml

You can open this with a web browser or XML viewer to get detailed benchmarking data.

Final thoughts

Even though Microsoft no longer displays the Windows Experience Index in the UI, it’s still a useful tool buried inside Windows. With just a few PowerShell commands, you can get a reliable snapshot of your PC’s performance, identify bottlenecks, and determine where to focus your upgrade efforts.

By learning how to check your WEI score, you’re taking the first step toward optimizing your system, whether you’re a casual user, gamer, or content creator.