This quetion stems from my noticing that my Windows 7 Experience ratings for Aero Desktop Performance is significantly less than the rating for Gaming Graphics.
I built an AMD 8-core APU. The Windows 7 Experience ratings indicate that the Aero Graphics (rated at 4.9) are less than the gaming graphics (6.4). I would have thought these two functions would be handled by the same hardware. Also, I would have thought that the Aero graphics would be less intesive than gaming graphics, although the Aero is functioning all of the time.
There must be something I misunderstanding about both the Windows Experience ratings and how the APU is handling aero/desktop environment and graphics. I have read these two articles (1 and 2 which are both blah) to understand the difference, but this leads me to another question: Is the GUI portion of the desktop environment, inlcuding muliple monitors, handled by the same hardware graphics modules as those that handle gaming and HD video? If not, what specs affect what function graphical funcions?
*Your answer might include explanations of how the difference specifications of a graphics card (such as onboard memory, frame rates, clock rate, memory interface [128-bit/256-bit], DirectX, etc.) affect different functions (desktop GUI environment vs. intensive gaming vs. HD media output, etc.). Thank you o' Knowledgeable Ones.
POST NOTE: I know many of the hardware specs will probably overlap, but hopefully this post will help indicate what is most important for different roles such as gaming, media center, multi-display setups (besides just the extra outputs), video/photo rendering, etc.