Upgrade AMD card - reinstall drivers or not?

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi folks,

Following my earlier thread about Crossfire (where most of the respondents advised me to upgrade to a more powerful card instead of trying a dual configuration) I have a question:

My rig now has one Radeon HD7770, with the latest recommended Catalyst drivers. If I upgrade to a faster, more powerful card, do I need to also uninstall the old graphics adapter, and the reinstall Catalyst Control Centre?

If yes, will that affect installed applications (like VLC, games, and anything that uses video)?

 

[Jaydip]

Nah just plugin your new card and it will work.

 

[SPBHM]

the new card will be recognized and installed...
if the Catalyst version you have supports the new card, everything should work...

 

[Mactronix]

Well personally I have only ever had about 2 maybe 3 driver issues with AMD/ATI cards and one was hardware the other 2 driver conflicts.
I used to just plug and play the cards as suggested above however for the last few years say 5 or so I have always used the uninstall package that comes with the AMD drivers.
Its easy and straight forward you will find the uninstaller in the driver folder.

The main things I would consider are how much older is the old card ? is it a different architecture for example.

I have always been of the opinion that its better to take 10 minutes and do the job properly rather than trouble shooting any possible driver conflicts later on.

Mactronix

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yeah, just update your Catalyst version before you swap the cards. It'll be fine.

If you were upgrading from a 5xxx series (I think...?) or older, you'd need to do what Mactronix said.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

Hmmm... I ended up installing a new SSD, so I had to start from scratch. But it's encouraging to hear that we've reached a point where driver reinstallation is no longer necessary between reasonably close (generationally speaking) cards....

Thanks for your help, folks!