AMD "Never Settle" 12.11 Driver - benchmarks are in!

[balane]

No, I didn't try getting into it remotely but because I can hear Windows still working with the display off I have no doubt it would operate just fine. That's a lot of work though.

If the problem crops back up again, it's fine for now with 12.10, I'll try that just for curiosity reasons. Thanks for the idea.

Fortunately for SSD's doing a reboot isn't as big a pain as it used to be. (Unless you are losing work because of it.)

 

[sze5003]

No, I didn't try getting into it remotely but because I can hear Windows still working with the display off I have no doubt it would operate just fine. That's a lot of work though.

If the problem crops back up again, it's fine for now with 12.10, I'll try that just for curiosity reasons. Thanks for the idea.

Fortunately for SSD's doing a reboot isn't as big a pain as it used to be. (Unless you are losing work because of it.)

Did you use driver cleaner when removing old drivers, in safe mode ? People had this in 12.7 and 12.8 too sometimes. I wonder if maybe the drivers make one of the ports stop rendering.

 

[Rhezuss]

Damn...the 7950 is starting to look really nice now. Great bundle.

 

[balane]

Yup, always do a safe mode boot driver sweep. Not sure if it does any good these days but it's habit by now.

 

[Haserath]

Found a bug in 12.11. :\

They might have focused a bit more on newer games and 7k series, but it makes the desktop unusable.

 

[zaydq]

Found a bug in 12.11. :\

They might have focused a bit more on newer games and 7k series, but it makes the desktop unusable.

Sounds like an isolated problem with your system... my desktop runs fabulously!

 

[Haserath]

Sounds like an isolated problem with your system... my desktop runs fabulously!

Using HD 6950, so it might be a 69xx series bug. It also might be only an HDMI bug. It runs fine except when I check the GPU scaling box, and TF2 has the same color corruption that occurs.

I went to report it, so I'll see if it's fixed in 12.12.

 

[zaydq]

Using HD 6950, so it might be a 69xx series bug. It also might be only an HDMI bug. It runs fine except when I check the GPU scaling box, and TF2 has the same color corruption that occurs.

I went to report it, so I'll see if it's fixed in 12.12.

Ah 6xxx series. Any way to try DVI?

 

[nOOky]

Dang, would I be foolish to buy another 7970 for CrossfireX just because?

 

[Haserath]

Ah 6xxx series. Any way to try DVI?

Got around to it, and the glitches aren't there with DVI.

 

[blue.chord]

For everyone else, this is great news. Specially those who like BF3- I can hear the sound of jaws hitting the floor as people load up multiplayer with this driver upgrade :biggrin:.

For me this makes for even better news, as it validates my choice of the 680 4gb for skyrim. Skyrim is the only game where I want absolutely no driver issues and maxed out eye candy, and it seems like AMD has been having issues with this particular title since launch.

AMD should look into the problems the 7970 are having because due to the 3gb Vram this is a great card for players who heavily mod their game.

 

[3DVagabond]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/N480GTX_GTX_480_Lightning/26.html

GTX 480 to 5870= 101w
GTX 480 Lightning to 5870= 84W

and a bigger performance difference between 480/5870 than 7970/680.

My point was, and you've done nothing to disprove it, that the pwer usage for the 480 over the 5870 was far greater than the power usage of the 7970 over the 680. Yet, you have people trying to draw them as parallel when they aren't.

What's your point? That 101w and 32w-43w is the same thing? Add this to it, imagine that the 5870 was more expensive than the 480.

From your review:

Compared to this:

The 5870 was better perf/$ and so is the 7970.

 

[Haserath]

My point was, and you've done nothing to disprove it, that the pwer usage for the 480 over the 5870 was far greater than the power usage of the 7970 over the 680. Yet, you have people trying to draw them as parallel when they aren't.

What's your point? That 101w and 32w-43w is the same thing? Add this to it, imagine that the 5870 was more expensive than the 480.
The 5870 was better perf/$ and so is the 7970.

You were arguing power consumption, or were arguing against an argument about power consumption.

What should really be looked at is performance/watt. The 480 is worse, but it's only 20% worse over the 5870 compared to the 7970/680(as in 7970 has 15% less perf/watt and the 480 was 35% less perf/watt).

One thing the 480 had was great tessellation performance over the 5870 while 7970 and 680 are equivalent.

I know the 480 wasn't as good, but it's not like Bulldozer.

 

[3DVagabond]

You were arguing power consumption, or were arguing against an argument about power consumption.

What should really be looked at is performance/watt. The 480 is worse, but it's only 20% worse over the 5870 compared to the 7970/680(as in 7970 has 15% less perf/watt and the 480 was 35% less perf/watt).

One thing the 480 had was great tessellation performance over the 5870 while 7970 and 680 are equivalent.

I know the 480 wasn't as good, but it's not like Bulldozer.

You're not really playing the Bulldozer card?

I'm not posting to say how bad the 480 was. Just that when people try to say the 7970 is as bad perf/W compared to the 680 as the 480 was compared to the 5870 they aren't correct.

The 680 and the 7970GE aren't equivalent. The 7970GE is faster and cheaper.

 

[Haserath]

You're not really playing the Bulldozer card?

I'm not posting to say how bad the 480 was. Just that when people try to say the 7970 is as bad perf/W compared to the 680 as the 480 was compared to the 5870 they aren't correct.

The 680 and the 7970GE aren't equivalent. The 7970GE is faster and cheaper.

I merely passed the card around the table as an example.:sneaky:

Yes, the 480 is worse, but it's not a huge perf/W difference. Significant, yes. The 580 shows how bad the release 480's were, but over time it got slightly better.

With these new drivers, it looks like AMD has taken a distinct lead and closed the gap on perf/W if the drivers don't make them use more power.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Not even sure if its only me or anyone else but i had this issue rise up just about half a hour ago.....

Was in one of my better BF3 rounds ever and out of no where my entire screen goes black,only way to fix it was a hard reboot and this was a entirely new experience for me which has me on high alert.

I hate sounding like a sour puss but jesus from crossfire issues in the pass to a 6990 running like a gtx460 to a 6790 that locked my system watching a dvd to this 7850 that doesn't clock for crap with the failing fan bearings and now the black screen,i just freaking believe nature has preselected me to have nothing but issues with amd cards each and every time one is installed.

I need like a priest or something to look into the future and tell me if the god damn 7950 i am looking into purchasing is gonna present some new stunts or issues...

 

[raghu78]

Reference stock vs aftermarket overclocked to it's limit, seems like a reasonable comparison to me. :thumbsup:

The stock ASUS HD 7970 Matrix Platinum was 30% faster at High AA. if that difference does not matter what does ?

Granted we're talking about Nvidia's bandwidth bottlenecked mid-range card at the least common resolution in gaming - but I'll give you that Gaming Evolved title. "Grats" But I don't play the Asain GTA that can't sell many copy's even at $20 on steam sales, so it's a pointless comparison for me, and based on sales the vast majority of gamers.

talk about yourself. not about the vast majority of gamers. any game which is the debut of a new franchise is considered a success if it does a million units in retail.

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70485/sleeping-dogs/ - 0.48 million
http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70486/sleeping-dogs/ - 0.48 million

With PC sales it has crossed million units. This game topped the UK charts for week ending Aug 18, Aug 25 and Sep 15.

http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index....p&ct=110015&arch=t&lyr=2012&year=2012&week=33

More importantly this game has been very well received by gamers and critics.

http://asia.gamespot.com/sleeping-dogs/reviews/sleeping-dogs-review-6391270/

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/08/14/sleeping-dogs-review

http://techreport.com/blog/23567/sleeping-dogs-will-keep-you-up-at-night

That's great, if that is how this generation closes out AMD pulled a fast one and dealt themselves a very strong position. However I don't believe that will be the end of this story, there is still a bit of time left before refreshes occur. Undoubtedly if anyone still wants to purchase a high end video card prior to a refresh AMD currently holds the strongest price/perf position, however if that is enough to win out over Nvidia's superior software or if Nvidia answers with price cuts of their own remains yo be seen.

AMD needs to offer more hardware for less because they simply can not compete on the software side, this isn't a simple price/performance situation as RS tries to convey endlessly otherwise AMD would be the industry leader and not the followers they are.

You don't realize it at all. First impressions are always the impressions which have maximum impact. Nvidia has gone aggressive on pricing in the past when the situation demanded. Because of lacklustre inital reviews for GTX 480 and GTX 470 Nvidia went quite aggressive on those cards. Thats why you could find some crazy prices on GTX 470 and GTX 480 when the GTX 500 series launched. Even today you can find GTX 480 for 200 bucks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130759

If Nvidia can sell anything on brand power why are they still selling the GTX 480. It stands to reason that GTX 480 could never shirk off its bad initial reviews even though with driver updates it beats HD 5870 by a solid 30% in the latest DX11 games.

To remind you Nvidia had to cut the prices on GTX 280 and GTX 260 two weeks after launch because AMD embarassed them with the HD 4870 and HD 4850 price perf. Thats what is the power of a good first impression. In this case i mean HD 4870's very good initial reviews.

Nvidia is riding the marketing success of Kepler because initial reviews very unanimously positive. But you can only ride that till the time when the press and public call you on your bluff. Nvidia's pricing now is just that - a bluff.

To remind you there was a time when AMD could charge 1000 dollars in 2005 for Athlon X2. But now they are struggling to even charge 200 for their FX high end CPU. Same for Intel which struggled to sell Pentium 4 Dual core because of poor perf/watt. But now they rule the high end CPU space.

 

[pandemonium]

So, anyone with an HD6870 or running crossfired configuration notice any improvements in Diablo 3? I'm betting the jitters that I'll get (and reportedly anyone with any configuration, be it AMD or nVIDIA, single card or multiple) weren't resolved with this driver release?

I also get very low frame rates during heavy action scenes, but I'm dumbing that down to my CPU bottleneck and lack of thread optimization from the gaming engine. /sigh

 

[Meghan54]

*SNIP*

You can quit trying to reason with BallFeeler....he's on time out for an unknown period---again---for his trolling--again.

That, and there is no reasoning with BallFeeler; he's just an unsponsored Nvidia shill and has only one single mission: to troll every AMD video card thread and stir the shit pot, something he seems quite effective doing and is something most miss around here.

 

[raghu78]

You can quit trying to reason with BallFeeler....he's on time out for an unknown period---again---for his trolling--again.

That, and there is no reasoning with BallFeeler; he's just an unsponsored Nvidia shill and has only one single mission: to troll every AMD video card thread and stir the shit pot, something he seems quite effective doing and is something most miss around here.

you are right. I think i am finally going to put him on ignore.

EDIT : Done

 

[flopper]

new tech arc takes time to get things right.
my 7970 is now a new card with this driver.
payed once for twice the upgrade.

 

[Olikan]

ON extremsystems ppl found out that IQ increased
12.11 beta

12.8

look at shadows and smoke

 

[boxleitnerb]

I can't make out any differences. Also take into account that the timestamps from those screenshots aren't exactly the same.

 

[Rvenger]

ON extremsystems ppl found out that IQ increased
12.11 beta


12.8


look at shadows and smoke

I notice there is less smoke and the shadows maybe a little more faded. Hmmmm. I should try that with my GTX 670 to compare against your's.

Where is the link for that thread over at XS?

 

[Olikan]

I notice there is less smoke and the shadows maybe a little more faded. Hmmmm. I should try that with my GTX 670 to compare against your's.

Where is the link for that thread over at XS?

my bad

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?283523-never-settle-amd-12.11-game-bundles/page2