3450, 5450 upgrade?

[Eunos]

G'day all

I just installed my new Sapphire Radeon HD5450 1GB card which was supposed to replace my 2 year old Asus Radeon HD3450 256MB. The system has always been biased towards energy efficiency due to the PicoPSU.

The reason for the upgrade was Windows 7 complaining that the 3450 was not quite being powerful enough for Aero, with some visual features such as 'show window contents while moving' needing to be disabled.

I figured it would be cheap enough to fix, but now I realise the new 5450 has seen my Windows Experience Index graphics score actually decline from 3.9 to 3.7!

Is my 5450 not running correctly, or have I inadvertently downgraded from what was already a very basic card 2 years ago? Otherwise I might have to look at a GO! Green HD5750 and hope my PSU can handle it, though its wattage is just a little too high for comfort...

Cheers.

[loimlo]

What's your system spec? Did you update chipset driver and 5450 driver to the newest version? If not, you'd update it. As for Index score, my 4670 got 6.8 but I never use Aero effects anyway.

[lobuni]

...
The reason for the upgrade was Windows 7 complaining that the 3450 was not quite being powerful enough for Aero, with some visual features such as 'show window contents while moving' needing to be disabled.
...

So Windows 7 still complains about it not being powerful enough?
You could try forcing the setting on if newer drivers don't help.

[Parappaman]

The 5450 is about 2x the performance of a 3450 and I would bet that setting can now be enabled. Just get over that rating, it's basically useless.

[~El~Jefe~]

thats freaky, it totally is stronger than it needs to be.

5450 is much more powerful than 3450 too!

[Eunos]

Cheers guys!

To add to the mystery, I gave the 3450 to my parents who have a 1.8 GHz AMD Sempron with 1 GB RAM, which is a quarter of my RAM total and a processor basically half as powerful as my 3.0 GHz dual core Intel E8400. The Aero works perfectly on theirs, whereas mine is still slightly compromised. It's not a big deal but just seems weird. I think I have the latest drivers as I downloaded them from the manufacturer's site a week or so ago. I think I'll just force the effects and call it a day.

Oh, and I know WEI is a questionable benchmark, but it's just weird that it's given me good marks in every area except graphics. It really likes my X-25M which gets a 7.5 even in IDE mode.