If I swap one ATI card for another do I need to update drivers?

[cbn]

Somebody posted that staying with a single GPU manufacturer simplifies driver installation.

With ATI cards I know they all use Catalyst drivers (I think the current set is @ 9.3)

Does that mean if I have the latest Catalyst drivers installed for a really old ATI card that I can just simply unplug my old card and install a new one with no other changes?

Or are these latest Catalyst drivers card specific?

 

[aka1nas]

IME, you might want to reinstall the video driver once the new card is in for best results. You shouldn't have to first thoroughly rip out the existing drivers like you would if you switched vendors, though.

 

[Beanie46]

Well, in one of my machines, I pulled out a 4850 and stuck in a 3870 without doing anything else and it was recognized and ran fine. Same thing with pulling out that 3870 and plugging in a 4870....recognized on next boot and working fine.

But, take vista x64 for instance.....the drivers are broken down/listed as: 4890 series, 4800 series, 4600 series, 4550 series, 4350 series, 3870 series, 3850, 3600 series, etc.

Vista x86: Same listing as x64, same series, etc.

XP 32 bit: Same sequence as above.


BUT......when you choose any of the 32 bit or 64 bit XP drivers, no matter the series, the same driver download shows up.

Under Vista x86, the same driver package seems to encompass the entire range of cards, and Vista x64 seems to do the same thing....same driver package no matter the series you choose. (Mind you, I only checked down as far as the 3850 cards.....but cannot think there'd be any difference beyond that if it hadn't changed driver packages from the 4890 series through the 3850 cards.)

So, try it. Worst that could happen is it isn't fully recognized and/or gives poor performance. When you change the card, if the card is recognized under CCC in the info screen, you're probably golden at that point.

 

[kmmatney]

I had some problems going from my old Radeon X850XT (actually a bios modded X800GTO2) to my HD4830. I got video, but there was some corruption in games. I just uninstalled the old drivers and re-installed new ones, and everything was fine. it doesn't take long at all to uninstall and re-install the drivers - it's worth the effort to make sure every works (were only talking about one extra reboot, if you swap the cards right after uninstalling the old drivers).