WEI dropped with ATI drivers  

Hi there, first post here so try to be nice :)

I built this PC a couple of days after windows 7 came out. I've been very happy with it, and with windows 7. It's all been running great.

I was shocked when my graphics card (an XFX ATI 4850) scored 7.3 in the WEI tool, but pleased at the same time.
Earlier today i updated the drivers to the latest ATI Catalyst drivers, something i hadnt bothered to do before, then ran WEI again. This time it wasnt a pleasant suprise i got, as my score plummetted to a measly 6.0.

I wonder if these drivers are actually making my GPU perform worse, or wether, without the latest drivers, WEI just wasnt sure of my graphics card and so tried to make a rough estimate the previous time i ran it.

What do you think? Should i roll back the driver change? I cant see any difference at all in the games i play but i'm not playing anything particuarly hardcore to push this beast anyway.

Would love to hear your opinions.

Hi

If working leave alone.

I have an ATI HD4850 and saw the same drop in the WEI "rating." The change happened not after a driver change, but after the WEI was updated so I suspect Microsoft revised the scale a bit to accommodate new, very high performance cards like the HD5870 or the nVIdia n300 cards that are just now/will soon be hitting the market.

You have to admit that giving an HD4850 a 7.3 is pretty unrealistic if two HD5870s in Crossfire max out the scale at 7.9.

Ok, consider my mind at ease, thanks.

And you are right rbmorse, the 7.3 was unrealistic. I have to say that 6.0 is much more like the score i would have expected in the first place. When i first built this rig i was comparing my WEI results with a friend, who is running 2xHD4870s in crossfire. He was a little annoyed when i scored .2 higher than him with 1 4850, so i kind of knew something wasnt quite right.

For the sake of arguments here i've got a score of 7.6 with an ATI HD4890. Running Cat 9.10 drivers. :)

I would like to say this.

Before the new drivers:

Comp 1 = 4850 = 7.3 / 7.3
Comp 2 = 4670 = 6.8 / 6.8

After new drivers:

Comp 1 = 4850 = 6.0 / 6.0
Comp 2 = 4670 = 6.8 / 6.8

The 4670 is an inferior model to the 4850, so the scoring system has not been changed or modified in anyway, either the new drivers for the 4850 are rubbish OR the scoring system just cannot work things out from the new drivers for this card, everything seems to be performing the same.

I had the same happen several months ago when I used using beta 7 and used new drivers.

I wouldn't worry about it, if you need your feel good factor of seeing your 7.3 score, then roll back driver, if you're not bothered just wait, new drivers will be coming soon no doubt, although I don't think the performance has dropped, as I got same scores as before using PC Performance Test software, just a dodgy scoring system.

For example, I got a Intel X25-M SSD drive, I did an assessment and got 7.4, I did another and got 7.1, I did another got 7.2 and another and got 7.1 & then 7.2, can't seem to get the 7.4 again, it was nice as that was my highest number.

I wouldn't really go on the WEI to judge how good your computer is.
I like to use PC Performance Test, I'm sure there is better software to use as well.