ATI Radeon HD 3200 vs 4290

[tomster_75]

Hello,
I'm currently suffering with my onboard Ati Radeon HD 3200 (AMD 780G). Especially 1080P playback is a problem, but also in general the windows 7 experience says 3,9 in graphics. Is 4290 (or perhaps just 4250) gonna help? I'm thinking of replacing my old MB to a new MB with a 880G or 890FX chipset, containing either the 4250 or 4290...

 

[shrkbay]

No, IGPs generally are weak and won't bring good performance in games. That's why we have external GPUs connected to motherboards through PCIe lanes. Don't mind the windows experience, it's just stupid.

 

[blazorthon]

It'll undoubtedly help but integrated graphics (excluding AMD Fusion chips) sucks and it will still have poor performance. The best solution would be to buy a cheap video card, say a Radeon 6450 or something from a previous generation of cards.

Honestly, Intel's integrated graphics is better than AMD's so if you must use integrated then Intel would be better than anything AMD has unless you go for an AMD Fusion chip, in which case you have the performance of a discrete video card at the cost of decreased CPU performance similar to that of an Athlon II with similar core count and clock speed.

As the above poster said, integrated graphics is weak but the integrated graphics from Intels HD 3000 IGP and AMD's Fusion IGP can do 1080p playback well because even at 1080p video isn't a very intensive task. Even though it isn't very intense it is still enough to cripple older IGPs so either buy a video card or get an Intel CPU with HD 3000 or an AMD Fusion APU.

 

[Wisecracker]

Verify that you have installed the proper UVD/UVD+ driver for your motherboard to enable the IGP hardware acceleration. The codec package for your player should have the "Unified Video Encoder" enabled.

"UVD2" is an improved version for the Radeon 42xx IGP. AMD formally called the drivers the 'Avivo' package but is now simply the 'Media Codec Package' ---they make it really hard to find, too, but here it is

If that does not improve things for you, an HD5450 is around $20 or so after rebates and will certainly do the trick BUT REMEMBER you still need to install the 'Media Codec Package' to enable hardware acceleration!

It really, really works -- you should see a significant drop in CPU utilization with the correct driver and 'Media Codec Package' installation.

 

[shrkbay]

There's no sence in getting a HD5450 or HD6450, because they are almost as weak as, or even weaker than IGPs. What comes to Intel IGPs: they are as strong as AMDs, so only thing that would make sence to upgrade to is a PCIe GPU.

 

[tomster_75]

I'm only concerned about the Win7 graphics performance*** and 720P and 1080P playback (I don't use the PC for games), so it was in that context I am asking if replacing my MB with HD3200 to a new one with HD4250/HD4290 would help.
(***I mean f.x. Win7 aero and the general experience I get as a user - I dont care about the low experience measurements as such, but unfortunately the low graphics score is correct, as I am getting a bad experience)

I simply haven't been able to google information on what kind of performance jump (if any) I should expect if I switched MB and thus GPU chipset.

I will try to download/install the AMD Media Codec Package as mentioned, and see if that helps.


As

 

[shrkbay]

^No, you won't see almost any improvement

 

[Wisecracker]

There's no sence in getting a HD5450 or HD6450, because they are almost as weak as, or even weaker than IGPs. What comes to Intel IGPs: they are as strong as AMDs, so only thing that would make sence to upgrade to is a PCIe GPU.

This is false.

And AMD drivers are far and above better than Intel drivers, as is their integrated graphics hardware.

 

[tomster_75]

so if I bought a new MB with either 880G or 890GX (side question, of those two, which is better performance wise) I could combine with an extra GFX card using Crossfire?
Would that help in Windows 7 regarding performance and 1080P playback, or is Crossfire purely for games?

 

[shrkbay]

@Wisecracker, user experience with 5450, HD3000 and Intel IGP:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?t=32657&p=205330

and some more information on them:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/66028-20-good-sandy-bridge-compared-existing-gpus

Tomster, there's no sence in buying a new MB, IGPs' performance is mostly the same. If you buy a GFX *like 5550 - 50$* card it will be strong enough, without crossfiring it with the IGP.