Whats the deal with my WEI?

[yamahamaxdrpms]

First post to the forum, lurking for a few days now.
Got my computer about 2 weeks ago, somewhat satisfied with it. But a little disappointed in the overall performance.

here are the specs..

HP Pavilion Elite e9300z PC

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

• AMD Phenom(TM) X4 925 quad-core processor [2.8GHz, 2MB L2 + 6MB L3 shared, up to 4000MT/s]
• 8GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM
• 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
• 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5450

and here is my performance rating.

-Processor: 7.2
-Memory: 7.5
-Graphics: 4.9 (seems low?? even with visual effects set to "best performance its still 4.9, My first rating when i got the computer was 5.9, how does it drop?)
-Gaming Graphics: 6.2 (why is that 6.2 but overall is only 4.9?)
-Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 (640GB is only 5.9?)

Not that i put a whole of value into these scores, but they are backed up by the fact that the new computer doesnt seem to be too much more powerful than the old one (1GB Ram, 100GB HDD, weak graphics card)

anything i can tweak to get these looking better and overall performance boost?

 

[chev65]

Most likely this has to do with the graphics driver being used. Try using another one and see if the score improves.

 

[Mellon Head]

and here is my performance rating.

-Processor: 7.2
-Memory: 7.5
-Graphics: 4.9 (seems low?? even with visual effects set to "best performance its still 4.9, My first rating when i got the computer was 5.9, how does it drop?)
-Gaming Graphics: 6.2 (why is that 6.2 but overall is only 4.9?)
-Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 (640GB is only 5.9?)

Not that i put a whole of value into these scores, but they are backed up by the fact that the new computer doesnt seem to be too much more powerful than the old one (1GB Ram, 100GB HDD, weak graphics card)

anything i can tweak to get these looking better and overall performance boost?

First of all, welcome.

Those aren't really bad scores. The biggest problem with your video card might be that it only has a 64 bit data bus to the GPU. That will limit you a little if you want to play any of the new eye-popping games. Not really bad though. The gaming graphics score of 6.2 is fairly respectable for a low end card. The drop in score may be a driver issue as mentioned above.

The hard disk score will never get above 5.9 unless you have a Raptor, or SSD drive. Mechanical drives top out at 5.9. That's just the way it is.

Your system sounds like it can handle most of what would be thrown at it. If you're into serious gaming, then yes, buy a better video card, but try some games with the one you have and see how it goes. ATI's 5000 series are much more advanced cards than previous models, and so far, it seems like the new lower end models perform much better than their equivalent older low-end models. I have an HD4670, and it's game performance is more than acceptable for the games I bother to play. It's gaming graphics score is 6.7, and it has a 128 bit bus, so I'd say your card won't be too shabby.

Oh yeah, did you have both monitors plugged in when you ran the first WEI? That might explain the drop.

 

[yamahamaxdrpms]

Most likely this has to do with the graphics driver being used. Try using another one and see if the score improves.

just rolled back driver, graphics went from 4.9 to 5.0 with "best appearance" and then i ran again with "best performance" and its at 5.0 as well lol

 

[yamahamaxdrpms]

and here is my performance rating.

-Processor: 7.2
-Memory: 7.5
-Graphics: 4.9 (seems low?? even with visual effects set to "best performance its still 4.9, My first rating when i got the computer was 5.9, how does it drop?)
-Gaming Graphics: 6.2 (why is that 6.2 but overall is only 4.9?)
-Primary Hard Disk: 5.9 (640GB is only 5.9?)

Not that i put a whole of value into these scores, but they are backed up by the fact that the new computer doesnt seem to be too much more powerful than the old one (1GB Ram, 100GB HDD, weak graphics card)

anything i can tweak to get these looking better and overall performance boost?

First of all, welcome.

Those aren't really bad scores. The biggest problem with your video card might be that it only has a 64 bit data bus to the GPU. That will limit you a little if you want to play any of the new eye-popping games. Not really bad though. The gaming graphics score of 6.2 is fairly respectable for a low end card. The drop in score may be a driver issue as mentioned above.

The hard disk score will never get above 5.9 unless you have a Raptor, or SSD drive. Mechanical drives top out at 5.9. That's just the way it is.

Your system sounds like it can handle most of what would be thrown at it. If you're into serious gaming, then yes, buy a better video card, but try some games with the one you have and see how it goes. ATI's 5000 series are much more advanced cards than previous models, and so far, it seems like the new lower end models perform much better than their equivalent older low-end models. I have an HD4670, and it's game performance is more than acceptable for the games I bother to play. It's gaming graphics score is 6.7, and it has a 128 bit bus, so I'd say your card won't be too shabby.

Thanks, LOL i dont even use the computer for games, a little photoshop or video editing and thats about it... most of the games are on the 360.

So is that where the card should be then? im almost positive that it was at 5.9 when i first started the computer the first day...

 

[Mellon Head]

For that card, the 4.9 or 5 is pretty respectable. I used to have a HD3450, which is similar, though the GPU isn't quite as advanced as yours, and it's score was 4.2. It was more than adequate to do everything with all of the eye candy enabled in Win 7, plus play some decent games.

If it isn't going to be a gaming machine, your card will do just fine, IMO.

 

[eldinv]

that stinks, i have an old nvidia 8600 card 256MB and its 6.5 on both

 

[not so gray matter]

Just update your drivers to the latest from the ati.amd.com site. If your score doesn't change, then you can try other drivers, but you're going to get the best peformance out of the newest ones in 95% of cases, regardless of what your WEI is.