Updated: 7970 from release drivers to 12.6 beta (ocaholic)

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3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
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This article shows a pretty good improvement in recent drivers.

I'll post the charts that show the summary of all the benches. If you want to read the entire comparison links are above the charts.

Single GPU:

Synthetic.png

Games.png






Crossfire:

Synthetic.png

Games.png





Added 12.6 beta

Synthetic.png

Games.png
 
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BrightCandle

BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
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The 7970 came out first week of January (6th or 7th IIRC) 2012, and it was first supported with a beta driver based off of 11.12. It did not run on Catalyst 11.12 so much as being a parallel branch of code specific to the 7970. It remained a separate chunk of code for quite a few releases.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
BrightCandle said:
The 7970 came out first week of January (6th or 7th IIRC) 2012, and it was first supported with a beta driver based off of 11.12. It did not run on Catalyst 11.12 so much as being a parallel branch of code specific to the 7970. It remained a separate chunk of code for quite a few releases.
Click to expand...

It was paper launched, and reviewed in December. First reviews were Dec 21. According to TechPowerUp there were special "Dec16 Reviewer drivers". So, it wasn't 11.12 that they were tested with. I wonder if Ocaholic realizes it? This review isn't really applicable until we find how the 7970 runs on the real release drivers.

The reviewer, Christian Ney, does frequent here. Maybe we can get some info?

Got clarification from Ocaholic. The drivers they used were the drivers that came on the CD in the retail bundle. I do remember for the longest time these were the best drivers to use. ...and yes, they report themselves as 11.12. I hope this clears it up.
 
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ViRGE

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
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3DVagabond said:
It was paper launched, and reviewed in December. First reviews were Dec 21. According to TechPowerUp there were special "Dec16 Reviewer drivers". So, it wasn't 11.12 that they were tested with. I wonder if Ocaholic realizes it? This review isn't really applicable until we find how the 7970 runs on the real release drivers.

The reviewer, Christian Ney, does frequent here. Maybe we can get some info?
Click to expand...
The 7970 release drivers officially ID themselves as 11.12. In practice they were in their own branch that got merged into a major Catalyst release around 12.2, IIRC.
 
BrightCandle

BrightCandle

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Mar 15, 2007
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The release drivers actually didn't improve performance in comparison to the earlier December drivers, they just fixed some bugs. I do remember reviews at the time saying there was no advantage other than fixing some problems.

The review is I believe an accurate reflection of the performance improvements from what early 7970 adopters got. If only AMD would fix my wretched Aero performance problems I would be happy!
 
ViRGE

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
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BrightCandle said:
The release drivers actually didn't improve performance in comparison to the earlier December drivers, they just fixed some bugs. I do remember reviews at the time saying there was no advantage other than fixing some problems.
Click to expand...
Correct. The first driver release out of the high performance branch wasn't until Jaunary 20th, right before the 7950 launch.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
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Magic Carpet

Magic Carpet

Diamond Member
Oct 2, 2011
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3DVagabond said:
This wasn't the point of the review. It was to show driver improvements, if any.
Click to expand...
Of course, it wouldn't be interested to show the people what gains AMD's main competitor gained in the same time frame? :colbert:

Yeah, there is little point in that article otherwise, I agree.
 
3

3DVagabond

Lifer
Aug 10, 2009
11,951
204
106
Magic Carpet said:
Of course, it wouldn't be interested to show the people what gains AMD's main competitor gained in the same time frame? :colbert:

Yeah, there is little point in that article otherwise, I agree.
Click to expand...

Mate, there are plenty of reviews with 12.4's that compare AMD vs. nVidia. If you look at reviews that aren't using 12.4's though you know there's performance to be gained with the later drivers. There are actually now 12.6a drivers out that are supposed to add further improvements. I assume we will have to wait for the next WHQL drivers to see comparisons with them.
 
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