ATI 12.8 decreases my windows experience index why?

[fajardokier]

I just update my graphic card's driver yesterday and my windows experience index need to be refreshed. my score before I update my graphic card is
7.5
7.9
7.8(Desktop performance for windows aero)
7.8(3D business and gaming graphics performance
7.4
My ati catalyst is 12.6 then I updated it to 12.8 and when I re run assessment the 2 GPU score decreases.
Now:
7.5
7.9
7.4(Desktop performance for windows aero)
7.4(3D business and gaming graphics performance
7.4

It decreases to .4... Is there really changes in performance when I'm gaming on that catalyst version? Or is just normal and improve performance?
By the way my graphic card is ATI 6870 1Gb ddr5 256bit card.
Thanks for the time!

 

[Sunius]

Why don't you check fps differences instead of trusting crappy microsoft tool? I'm pretty sure you will not see any differences

 

[dudewitbow]

use a proper gpu bench tool instead of the flaw that is WEI. similar to the 12.7 drivers and pcmark scores, 7970 users had a decrease in pc mark and increase in game fps. only the latter is relavent.

 

[Deemo13]

Windows Experience Index doesnt tell you anything. I wouldnt worry about it.

 

[rdc85]

WEI changes his mind as his likes.......... sometimes it give u A sometimes B (even with same hardware/setting)

Don't worry about it, it doesn't means anything. As the poster above said try it with your games it will give the better judgement..

 

[vitornob]

12.8 decreases your score cause WEI doesn't works at all.

 

[ss202sl]

WEI takes all hardware into account. As new hardware comes out, the old hardware becomes dated, and starts to drop in the scale. This compares how well your hardware matches up with ALL other hardware, so over time your score will drop. WEI is working as designed.

 

[Sunius]

^
No that is not the truth..

 

[Deemo13]

If that was the case, then my 6950 is still the top of the line card.

 

[JKatwyopc]

WEI is not that useful for indicating the actual perormance capabilties of your Graphics system. I have 2 Radeon HD 6870's in Crossfire and I get the exact same numbers as if I only had 1. In addition the numbers seem to jump arond quite a bit, especially the Graphics system numbers.

When I first installed one 6870 I got a WEI if 7.6 for the graphics, then I started playing with OCing the 6870 and got it up to 7.8. However, when I Installed the second 6870 in crossfire, I reset all of the clocks to default and still got 7.8. I have since reinstalled Windows 7 a couple of times and my WEI has gone from 7.5 at times up to 7.8 and everything in between. Ironically, my processor, memory and hard drive numbers never changed.

My conclusion was that WEI really doesn't do an effective job of indicating the performance of my graphics system just as others have already stated. If you want to find out what the real performance of your graphics system compared to other similarly configured systems, use a benchmark like 3DMark11 or 3DMark Vantage. Those are designed to give you reasonably acccurate and consistent measurements.