Diagnose
The parts are right. The machine is not.
A new machine that underperforms its parts has a setting or a seating problem, not a hardware one. The test shows which of the three usual causes it is.
What the report tells you
Three figures, each with its reading.
Curve shape
step / slide / held
A step is a board power limit lower than intended. A slide is a cooler not seated or a case without airflow. Held means look elsewhere.
Memory bandwidth
GB/s
A kit running at its fallback speed instead of its rated profile shows markedly lower bandwidth. This is the most common cause on a new build.
Consistency
%
A new machine with erratic throughput has something running on it. Bloatware, an updater, an indexer on its first pass.
The diagnosis
The shape of the curve, read for your case.
01A single step down
The motherboard's default power limit. Many boards ship with the chip's conservative sustained wattage; the BIOS raises it.
02A steady slide
The cooler. Check the mounting pressure, the paste, and whether the case fans are actually exhausting.
03Erratic
Software. A new machine's first hours are full of indexing, updates and vendor utilities. Run again tomorrow.
Every class comes with a stated confidence and the measurement’s own noise floor. How the shape is read
Where a browser stops
What it cannot tell you.
- No memory speed in megahertz: the report shows bandwidth, which is the effect of the speed. Compare before and after enabling the profile.
- No temperature: pair the first run with a monitoring tool.
- No storage test: a slow drive is not something this test can find.
Which run
Deep, 8 minutes.
A new machine's baseline should be the deep run: settled level, spread and GPU loops. Everything later is compared against it.
Both kinds are free. The choice is on the set-up screen.
Questions
Asked in these words.
- Why is my new PC slower than it should be?
- Three causes cover most cases: a motherboard power limit lower than the chip can use, a memory kit running at its fallback speed, or a cooler that is not seated. Each shows differently in the test: a step, low bandwidth, or a slide.
- How do I know if my RAM is running at the right speed?
- The memory stage reports bandwidth from one thread and from all threads. Enable the kit's rated profile in the BIOS and run again; the report compares the two runs and the bandwidth figure moves if the profile took effect.
- Should I be worried about a single step down?
- No. A step is a power limit, which on a new build is usually the board's default. Raising it is a BIOS setting. A slide is the one to act on.