AMD 10.12 vs 11.1 vs 11.1a tested ... interesting read

[SolMiester]

Are you... joking? They only test two games. And the article doesn't verify your argument that AMD's drivers are bad. The only thing article shows is that there is little or no difference or improvement in the tests they run between 10.12 and 11.1. Your conclusion is illogical.

http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=23626

To be fair those, the site does say and i quote

we decided to set out and give the 6970 another shot. Was it just another bad driver from AMD that seemed to have crippled the 6970

Just another bad driver?....I guess they have had a few issues!?

 

[Spike]

Sorta related random question... has anyone looked at GPU-Z with their AMD card running 11.1a drivers? When I look it tells me I'm running 10.12 drivers... is that normal?

Apart from that question the drivers seem to be working great in every game except Just Cause 2. I occasionally get flickering on certain textures that I did not see before. It only happens when I'm riding in a chopper to do a stronghold takover mission and as I normally skip those cut scenes it could have always been present so I don't really know.

 

[Copenhagen69]

To be fair those, the site does say and i quote

we decided to set out and give the 6970 another shot. Was it just another bad driver from AMD that seemed to have crippled the 6970

Just another bad driver?....I guess they have had a few issues!?

Well my guess would be if you looked at their 6970 actual review the card performed as well as a 480 most of the time. All the hype surrounding this card it should have been better and that is what I think they were trying to get at.


my .02

 

[Bateluer]

article seems to point out that there has been no real improvement in the drivers ... even though it is short it still shows off what I have thought for a long time.
[/URL]

That they don't know how to write a conclusive test?

Definitely saw improvements with my 4870 with various driver revisions, though its at the point where drivers don't do much any more. Obsolete.

 

[Copenhagen69]

Sorta related random question... has anyone looked at GPU-Z with their AMD card running 11.1a drivers? When I look it tells me I'm running 10.12 drivers... is that normal?

Apart from that question the drivers seem to be working great in every game except Just Cause 2. I occasionally get flickering on certain textures that I did not see before. It only happens when I'm riding in a chopper to do a stronghold takover mission and as I normally skip those cut scenes it could have always been present so I don't really know.

From what I hear GPU-z will use the last driver installed and show that one.

As for JC2 I have never played so I dont know ...

 

[NoQuarter]

Sorta related random question... has anyone looked at GPU-Z with their AMD card running 11.1a drivers? When I look it tells me I'm running 10.12 drivers... is that normal?

Apart from that question the drivers seem to be working great in every game except Just Cause 2. I occasionally get flickering on certain textures that I did not see before. It only happens when I'm riding in a chopper to do a stronghold takover mission and as I normally skip those cut scenes it could have always been present so I don't really know.

I believe since the hotfix drivers aren't official WHQL drivers they don't update the Catalyst version # when you install them, so anything that reports your driver version including CCC will still say Cat 10.12, but if you look at the actual 2d driver and Direct3d driver versions will be correct, though the numbers for those are less easy to interpret (my Direct3d version is 7.14.10.0812).

 

[Copenhagen69]

I believe since the hotfix drivers aren't official WHQL drivers they don't update the Catalyst version # when you install them, so anything that reports your driver version including CCC will still say Cat 10.12, but if you look at the actual 2d driver and Direct3d driver versions will be correct, though the numbers for those are less easy to interpret (my Direct3d version is 7.14.10.0812).

Yep they are not official and that is why you can not find them on AMD Drivers listing. You will only find the 10.12, 11.1, 11.2 Ect. Ect.

Plus W!zzard has not updated GPU-z to even show the 11.1 drivers correctly either. So for now, those will be wrong too.:thumbsup:

 

[Skurge]

Well my guess would be if you looked at their 6970 actual review the card performed as well as a 480 most of the time. All the hype surrounding this card it should have been better and that is what I think they were trying to get at.


my .02

The hype came from places like fudzilla claiming it was the next R300.

Still, in what way is it "crippled" I don't think you think your 6970 is crippled do you?

 

[Red Storm]

When I got a 5870 I went to AMD's site, used it and it gave me the link to the appropriate drivers to use. No problems since.

When I got a 6950 for another machine, I did the same thing. No problems.

The same thing with the Nvidia cards I've owned. Some of you must have done a lot of bad things in a prior life, or maybe you're just unlucky. I can't even remember the last time I had a major driver issue. :hmm:

 

[Copenhagen69]

The hype came from places like fudzilla claiming it was the next R300.

Still, in what way is it "crippled" I don't think you think your 6970 is crippled do you?

I dont think it is crippled ... I just think they hype was so high that everyone thinks it is. It performs well, but just not as well as the 570 and 580 :thumbsup:

 

[Copenhagen69]

When I got a 5870 I went to AMD's site, used it and it gave me the link to the appropriate drivers to use. No problems since.

When I got a 6950 for another machine, I did the same thing. No problems.

The same thing with the Nvidia cards I've owned. Some of you must have done a lot of bad things in a prior life, or maybe you're just unlucky. I can't even remember the last time I had a major driver issue. :hmm:

yep +1 to that ... Not sure what people do to make them have so many issues. :\

 

[Skurge]

I dont think it is crippled ... I just think they hype was so high that everyone thinks it is. It performs well, but just not as well as the 570 and 580 :thumbsup:

I think you underestimating your card there. It performs just as well as a 570 with a large advantage in crossfire (which depends almost completely on drivers) at resolutions higher than 1920x1200.

 

[3DVagabond]

People who sell and/or repair computers use the truism. "Some people shouldn't own computers." This saying pops into my head most times I read posts with driver problems.

I especially like the ones where the drivers they had installed worked fine. They updated to the latest ones and some app or game is exhibiting a bug now. The solution is so obvious, I'm not even going to say what it is here. Most of you will know exactly what it is. Those who don't, or won't accept that it's what should be when you are told, you shouldn't own a computer. /rant

 

[watchthisspace]

In Bad Company 2, my Crossfire performance went down the toilet Used to have on AVG 66% GPU usage on both cards, now I don't even get 50%. Really disappointed. This is with 11.1. Back to 10.4

 

[Dribble]

People who sell and/or repair computers use the truism. "Some people shouldn't own computers." This saying pops into my head most times I read posts with driver problems.

I especially like the ones where the drivers they had installed worked fine. They updated to the latest ones and some app or game is exhibiting a bug now. The solution is so obvious, I'm not even going to say what it is here. Most of you will know exactly what it is. Those who don't, or won't accept that it's what should be when you are told, you shouldn't own a computer. /rant

So people who update their drivers shouldn't own computers? Do you apply that rule to everything else - virus checkers, software, etc?

Really all I get from your statement is Ati video cards are only for advanced users who are experts on what driver to use for what card and what game. Those who just want their video card to work as long as they take the trouble to keep the drivers up to date should look elsewhere. Is that really true?

 

[Zanovar]

people who sell and/or repair computers use the truism. "some people shouldn't own computers." this saying pops into my head most times i read posts with driver problems.

I especially like the ones where the drivers they had installed worked fine. They updated to the latest ones and some app or game is exhibiting a bug now. The solution is so obvious, i'm not even going to say what it is here. Most of you will know exactly what it is. Those who don't, or won't accept that it's what should be when you are told, you shouldn't own a computer. /rant

+1000000

 

[Zanovar]

So people who update their drivers shouldn't own computers? Do you apply that rule to everything else - virus checkers, software, etc?

Really all I get from your statement is Ati video cards are only for advanced users who are experts on what driver to use for what card and what game. Those who just want their video card to work as long as they take the trouble to keep the drivers up to date should look elsewhere. Is that really true?

laughing at you

 

[evolucion8]

I think you underestimating your card there. It performs just as well as a 570 with a large advantage in crossfire (which depends almost completely on drivers) at resolutions higher than 1920x1200.

Yes, the HD 6970 sometimes matches or outperforms the GTX 580, something that the GTX 570 will never achieve at stock, making the HD 6970 a better buy, but the GTX 570 prices are falling, which may negate such advantage.

 

[Wreckage]

I dont think it is crippled ... I just think they hype was so high that everyone thinks it is. It performs well, but just not as well as the 570 and 580 :thumbsup:

Not to mention how well an overclocked 560 performs against it.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138790

 

[Copenhagen69]

So people who update their drivers shouldn't own computers? Do you apply that rule to everything else - virus checkers, software, etc?

Really all I get from your statement is Ati video cards are only for advanced users who are experts on what driver to use for what card and what game. Those who just want their video card to work as long as they take the trouble to keep the drivers up to date should look elsewhere. Is that really true?

Do I need to bring up with nvidia drivers were killing cards?

Nvidia just seems to have had a few good releases while ATI has had crap. This will switch sometime and we will be back to bashing nvidia and their crap drivers ... it is a vicious cycle :thumbsup:

 

[evolucion8]

Not to mention how well an overclocked 560 performs against it.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138790

Do you actually believe results from a random poster instead of a website that dedicates itself to do hardware reviews? Talk about double standards here.... again

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/02/01/galaxy_geforce_gtx_560_ti_gc_overclocking_review/3

When it comes down to performance it seems the overclock helped quite a bit. You should see around a 12-17% performance improvement with the video card overclocked to 1015MHz GPU/2030MHz shaders and 4.34GHz memory. At this overclock, it seems to match the Radeon HD 6950 quite well. That is the catch though, it takes pushing the Galaxy GeForce GTX 560 Ti GC to its limits in order to achieve Radeon HD 6950 performance.

We are operating the Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC at a very high voltage, and a whopping 135 more system Watts compared to the Radeon HD 6950. This higher voltage and higher power requirement also requires a robust cooling solution as the heat output increases also. The Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC uses a custom cooling device which works great. It has two big fans, and those two big fans were running at 100% automatically to make this overclock happen. We are reaching quite far with the GTX 560 Ti, reaching into its limits with power draw, thermal abilities, and clock frequencies. The point is, it takes all of this for the GTX 560 Ti to reach Radeon HD 6950 performance while the Radeon HD 6950 is sitting there nice and pretty running with a much lower power consumption, and at stock frequencies.


Can the GeForce GTX 560 Ti match Radeon HD 6950 performance? The answer is yes, but it takes running the GPU to its limits in order to do so; whereas the Radeon HD 6950 has headroom to grow. The Radeon HD 6950 can also be over-volted and overclocked with many manufacturers supporting custom coolers. The Radeon HD 6950 can be pushed farther, increasing its performance beyond the stock frequencies also. When that is done, performance once again turns in favor of the Radeon HD 6950. So what it means, in essence, is that the GeForce GTX 560 Ti will never honestly catch up to the Radeon HD 6950, cause the GTX 560 Ti is at its limits where the HD 6950 is just getting started.


Worth mentioning as well is that many Radeon 6950 owners have "unlocked" their cards to enabled 1536 stream processors while attaining stock 6970 core and memory speeds.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-560-ti-oc-vs-gtx-570-vs-6950-conclusion.html

The first thing which we have to say about the Inno3D GTX 560 Ti is that out of the box it is the fastest version of this new GPU we have seen so far. It exceeds the speed offered by ASUS and Palit (as two examples) by 50MHz on the core which is a significant amount. Throughout the review it performed well when compared to the 6870 and often matches the 6950.

And it was ran stable at 1GHz, yet it couldn't outperform the HD 6950 consistently.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/01/27/msi-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review/9

As impressive as the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB’s stock-speed performance is, the MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II/OC improves upon this even further. The factory overclock might not be earth shattering, but it allows the card to close the gap to the GeForce GTX 570 1.3GB, and in some cases the two cards performed identically despite the £75 price difference.

He said in some cases, and considering that the HD 6970 is slightly faster than the GTX 570, means that you have to overclock the hell of the GTX 560 to 1GHz, increasing the power consumption and heat dissipation just to match the GTX 570 in rare circumstances? While it is impressive as is a cheaper card, does it worth the savings for increased power consumption, heat dissipations and chances to burn the card? Doubtfull, may be in your mind.

PS: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...oc-vs-gtx-570-vs-6950-napoleon-total-war.html <<Look at that review, the HD 6950 constantly snipping the heels of the GTX 570, imagine the performance of such card unlocked and overclocked? It will easily beat the GTX 570.

Try harder again,

 

[Copenhagen69]

+1 to above ... good stuff

 

[dust]

Thanks for the summary. It is obvious the 6950 is the best buy from the entire high-end line-up, however some posters here will ALWAYS see the empty part of the glass while looking at ATI.

 

[badb0y]

I think it's more that the GTX 460 was such a good value that people are equating it's epicness to the GTX 560. The GTX 560 is great but the prompt response from AMD made the GTX 560 less awesome than the GTX 460.

 

[Copenhagen69]

Thanks for the summary. It is obvious the 6950 is the best buy from the entire high-end line-up, however some posters here will ALWAYS see the empty part of the glass while looking at ATI.

you think so? how does it compare to the 560?