i have a 512 mb graphics card but even after this my 'Desktop performance for windows aero' rating is only 3.6?

Puzzling. I have a 7300gt AGP video card, running 7 Ultimate, and my Aero experience is a 3.8, I just checked. More puzzling to me is that I cannot ever get my GPU usage over 25%, even when I play 720p videos. My processor is my weak point (3.6), but I still come no where near 100% CPU usage unless I have multiple, multiple programs running. My advice to you would be to see just how much capability your card has. Go into the Nvidia control panel and turn up all the vid card settings that you can. Download EVGA Precision (from the EVGA website). It's free and will work with almost all Nvidia card ever made. This will allow you to safely over-clock your video card slightly to increase it's performance. And then use it. That Aero score is a made up number anyway. It should be used as a guideline only, not a end all scoring system. I know from experience that the Windows performance score isn't 100% accurate. My brother and father have similar computers in processor speed and RAM but my brother has a video card and my father doesn't. Yet the Aero rating of my father's computer is only 1/10 of a point lower. And watching HD video on both, there is a huge difference in actual performance, even if Windows doesn't think so. So, if its good enough for you and it does all that you need it to, who cares what the number says.

You appear to be aiming for a low budget set up. As long as you have a PCI Express slot this will work. It is PCI Express 2.0 X 16 but is backwards compatible with PCI Express X 16.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

You won't need a 2nd mortgage to buy it:)

Buy a gddr5 graphics card. I suspect your card is only rated at gddr2 speeds, which means graphics performance lags behind.

8400 is crap, and will give you crap ratings.

If you had bought a card with a better chipset, you'd score better.

Video memory isn't as important as the video chipset.

its a low-end graphics card

pretty useless

check the mid-rangge ones

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic...

8400gs is old.my 9400gt 1gb has a base score of 4.8.