AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Before And After A Year Of Driver Updates

[acku]

Are you dutiful about keeping your drivers up-to-date? AMD does a pretty fantastic job about maintaining a monthly release schedule, after all. Today we look at how much performance you can expect from an old card in new games using four driver packages.

AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Before And After A Year Of Driver Updates : Read more

 

[dallaswits]

I run a 5850, have loved it, and always get the newest driver.

 

[sabot00]

Wow, someone is really pissy.

 

[cangelini]

More like someone has been really moderated ;-)

 

[Assmar]

[citation][nom]hahahyoursowrong[/nom]"The moral of the story: be sure your graphics card drivers are always up to date."I'd love to cept I get a blue screen every time and can't even get to windows going from 10.4 to the newest.[/citation]
Uninstall all drivers before installing new ones.

 

[opmopadop]

If that guy who created/posted his problem 5 times spent that much effort understanding why his rig BSOD'd when he used the latest set, he might have resolved his problem by now.

 

[slyphnier]

ever since 10.11 ... many user got "100% GPU usage" and "top right mouse lag" issue
11.4 early preview still having the issue
from what i know the issue above mostly effect radeon 5000series (5850 and 5970)
for people having those issue forced to stick with 10.10e

still no news when amd will fix those issue, as from what i heard amd can't replicate the issue on their lab, thus can't fix it

 

[Assmar]

I know you're terribly busy, but any way we can get the CF comparisons from then and now, even if it isn't as thorough?

 

[Zeh]

I'm eager for a new driver release. I've switched my old 4670 ddr2 for a 6850. In some games I'm having a few VSync problems, and the overall performance during video playback has decreased and I have no idea why, quality did not change, or at least I didn't see any changes.

This 6850 just doesn't feel as rock solid as the good old 4670, which never gave me any trouble. Here's hoping new drivers will solve my issues. Else, I might even switch to a pair of GeForces instead of getting another 6850 for crossfire.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]assmar[/nom]I know you're terribly busy, but any way we can get the CF comparisons from then and now, even if it isn't as thorough?[/citation]

Excellent story idea, assmar.

 

[howiejcee]

Andrew Ku forgot to mention that ATI's lousy drivers have and for the foreseeable future will always have problems.

Not to say that Nvidia occasionally has driver issues, but at least they fix the problems. Only 10.9 and a couple versions before that don't give my 5870 any major problems.

 

[Darkerson]

I dunno, the entire time I had my 5770 (a little over a year), I never had any driver issues. It was part of the reason I decided to pull the trigger on a 6950 instead of something from the Nvidia camp. The only time I had any driver issues with ATI was back when I had an old 9800SE, but I more assumed it was because I had soft modded it. YMMV I suppose.

 

[scrumworks]

[citation][nom]howiejcee[/nom]Andrew Ku forgot to mention that ATI's lousy drivers have and for the foreseeable future will always have problems.Not to say that Nvidia occasionally has driver issues, but at least they fix the problems. Only 10.9 and a couple versions before that don't give my 5870 any major problems.[/citation]

Nice trolling man.

 

[reprotected]

I'm not liking the new AMD drivers. They were never good in the first place. Sure Nvidia screwed up by burning a few video cards, but they are easier to manage IMO.

 

[Maziar]

I were happy with the driver updates until 10.11 All drivers from 10.11 and up give me numerous problems such as 99% GPU usage,high 2D clocks etc. So unfortunately for some people,new drivers have much problems.

 

[Olle P]

I've previously done my own comparison of driver performance, but not at this level.
The conclusions I made (based on upgrades done after the hardware was about two years old) were that:
- Returns are diminishing as the hardware gets older.
The manufacturer will spend less time updating drivers for a three year old card than they do updating for the latest generation.
- Returns can even be negative when paired with older software.

It would have been very nice to see the test incorporate some of the benchmarks used to test the 5870 when it was released, to see if/how these have improved.

 

[haplo602]

now try the same for Linux and cry 🙂

just kidding. the drivers game is the same for both camps. Nvidia is usualy more stable while AMD tries to improve often even at the cost of regresions.

the issue with the AMD driver schedule is that they alternate development teams. basicaly fixes from one driver release don't have to be included in the next, since the development started before the current one was finished. it's mostly visible on Linux drivers. One release fixes an issue and it's back in he next one.

 

[Assmar]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]Excellent story idea, assmar.[/citation]
That's because you were already working on it, weren't you? 😛

 

[mactronix]

If they spent more time on stability instead of trying to get 3 more FPS out of the latest AAA game to make it seem as if they have the best cards in benchmarks then everyone would be happier IMHO

 

[AMW1011]

Nice Tom's. You hit another one out the park. Driver improvements do make a nice difference, and are important. Thanks for the quality article Tom's.

 

[executor2]

Wonderful article , thanks Tom`s Hardware.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

i would love xfire comparisons, particularly 5770 old driver vs new, since that 5770 is likely to be on the market for a while yet and i would consider it if the xfire scaling was better than the gts 450. Anyone know if the scaling or new AA features from the 6xxx cards are beneficial in new drivers with older 5xxx cards?

 

[mactronix]

Its just a pity the driver team cant put as much effort into the actual drivers. I really don't understand why there is no access to the drivers higher functions from within the CCC.
I have used Ray Adams ATI Tray Tools for years now and especially with things how they are now, with games just not challenging the hardware, i don't see why you should need a third party application to increase the quality settings. Sure it results in a drop in frame rates but as i said we really don't have a FPS issue with games at the moment.
Omega drivers and ATI Tray tools made Far Cry 2 look like a totally different game and the Omega drivers back then were tweaked 7.12 drivers while ATI were on 8.6 +

Mactronix

 

[Guest]

Looks like some1 didn't see their post, posted, and re-posted far too many times.

 

[liemfukliang]

6 months later, try GTX 460. Thank you.