Early Reviews on AMD Catalyst 12.11 drivers

[dudewitbow]

Anandtech Review

Hexus Review

I wasn't even aware 12.11 was already slated, felt like 12.8 didn't happen too long ago. What surprised me most about these reviews is the ridiculous jump in Battlefield 3 performance, to the point that different price point AMD cards have equaled or surpassed their nvidia price point counterparts. Sadly, no movement in power consumption with the cards. GCN has really been a large refreshment when it comes to drivers for AMD. I'm going to assume Toms might test as well?(while all the review sites will be busy for the upcoming FX-8350 Benchmarks either tommorrow or the day after)

Thoughts?

 

[ilysaml]

What a hell of a bundle :S:S:S:S:S:S:S:S:S:S:S:S:S

 

[cooldudesubho]

Mother of god what the hell they did in BF3?Huge gains.Nvidia where our performance drivers?.Kudos to AMD but still took them 1 year to make such drivers.Which is a fail.lol

But really those BF3 improvements are unreal.As if after 1 year after the game released they finally figured out which line of code in there driver was killing performance.

I bet that what you get if you buy AMD.You tend to enjoy games at there max performance 1 year after release.😀

Waiting for resident AMD fanboys one by the name mack to bash me now.D

And why i have a sneaky feeling nvidia will response to this BF3 improvements since it seem this imrpovements are map specific and not the whole game.

 

[manofchalk]

12.11, We are still on 12.8, AMD are going to release 3 more drivers in 10 days? Or am I just wrong in how they name them?

Damn, most of the performance gains are on the 7970, and what big improvements there are on the 7870 are games I don't own...

That being said, I think my brothers PC could do with a HD7770 if it gets me Far Cry 3, that's reason enough for me 😀

Gotta love AMD, really supporting their user-base with amazing driver updates. I hope this will force Nvidia to finally drop their prices or push out a similar driver update.

 

[cooldudesubho]

Yeah its about time we get some performance drivers from nvidia also.

 

[kristi_metal]

12.11, We are still on 12.8, AMD are going to release 3 more drivers in 10 days? Or am I just wrong in how they name them?

No, it's because of their naming scheme, 12 represents the year (2012) and 8 the month (august). 12.11 will be the drivers published in november 2012.

 

[proffet]

I do love bundled games..

it looks like all the benefits was to BF3, Dirt and AvP...
so if you play BF3 and most of us probably do then it's nice for 7970 runners.

to be honest, just another fresh set of drivers nothing more.
nVidia will be doing the same soon and then Radeon again.
it's just a cycle.

 

[AdioKIP]

12.11, We are still on 12.8, AMD are going to release 3 more drivers in 10 days? Or am I just wrong in how they name them?

Damn, most of the performance gains are on the 7970, and what big improvements there are on the 7870 are games I don't own...

That being said, I think my brothers PC could do with a HD7770 if it gets me Far Cry 3, that's reason enough for me 😀

Gotta love AMD, really supporting their user-base with amazing driver updates. I hope this will force Nvidia to finally drop their prices or push out a similar driver update.

You are correct about the naming 12(year).8(month) but earlier this year AMD made the decision that they would no longer update monthly, only as needed. 12.8 was August, 12.11 will be November but there wont be a 12.9, 12.10.

 

[MWisBest]

You are correct about the naming 12(year).8(month) but earlier this year AMD made the decision that they would no longer update monthly, only as needed. 12.8 was August, 12.11 will be November but there wont be a 12.9, 12.10.

There has already been a 12.9 beta. and also a 12.10 driver, but only for embedded systems or something along those lines.

 

[dyc4ha]

The improvements are certainly impressive, well done AMD!

Now I am personally finding it near impossible to recommend to my friends buying a nvidia this holiday season. Such aggressive value propositions AND performance.

 

[RussK1]

http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/10/22/never-settle-driver/

 

[MWisBest]

Although my 3DMark 11 graphics score stayed the same from 12.9 to 12.10 to 12.11 on my A8-3500M APU (6620G)+6750M combo, my physics score went up over 25%! Nobody thought about them improving GPGPU performance for the non-GCN cards. 😉

 

[neon neophyte]

i just installed 12.11 from 12.8 and my WEI graphics scores went from 7.4 to 7.9. yay. should also point out when i got the 7.4 it was with my card at 990mhz and a voltage bump. now im at 920mhz with no voltage bump. very nice indeed. should also point out i can't overclock as much now, i get wicked graphical errors.

 

[RussK1]

Although my 3DMark 11 graphics score stayed the same from 12.9 to 12.10 to 12.11 on my A8-3500M APU (6620G)+6750M combo, my physics score went up over 25%! Nobody thought about them improving GPGPU performance for the non-GCN cards. 😉

Same here with a 6990... My combined test is considerably higher and not to mention the improved low power state.

**Quite a few reviews and they are all good**

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews [...] rformance/

 

[proffet]

NVIDIA Releases the Performance-Boosting GeForce 310.33 Beta Driver
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=4796

told ya it was coming.
it's a never-ending cycle.

 

[RussK1]

NVIDIA Releases the Performance-Boosting GeForce 310.33 Beta Driver
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=4796

told ya it was coming.
it's a never-ending cycle.

Doesn't show anything other than calling them "performance".

But I'll download it and test with my 580m SLI.

 

[proffet]

let me know how it goes, I'm not installing them on mine.
I for one do not do beta..

 

[RussK1]

Heaven 3.0

306.23

310.33

Lower... but minimum FPS is better.

3Dmark Vantage:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dmv/4361482/3dmv/4308698

An increase but minute at best.

 

[proffet]

that could just be a twitch....
run it a few times and I bet you'll get different results.

in other words, I'm betting until the final release (if it's different), the drivers aren't about much and certainly not the jump as these Radeon drivers.
green looses this round of driver releases.

 

[RussK1]

that could just be a twitch....
run it a few times and I bet you'll get different results.

in other words, I'm betting until the final release (if it's different), the drivers aren't about much and certainly not the jump as these Radeon drivers.
green looses this round of driver releases.

Really doesn't matter to me since I have both. And you're right, I'll get different results every time... just have to find the mean score. Would be nice to get some extra performance on both machines though. Would like to see some Kepler benches since I'm testing with Fermi... **hint hint**

 

[proffet]

I have to replace a busted Antec 620 this evening, stop working and now I have to go back to my old CM TX3 with dual 92mm fans.
so now both units are on air..

 

[dudewitbow]

NVIDIA Releases the Performance-Boosting GeForce 310.33 Beta Driver
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=4796

told ya it was coming.
it's a never-ending cycle.

the performance increase(and decrease for some) isn't as big as the 12.11. Users a few installation problems were also noted on overclock net when i read on nvidia users view on the drivers. its a cycle, but AMD tends to get larger pushes on serious changes because of the fact that nvidia drivers are already more "initially" stable. So AMD cards tend to have much more room for driver improvement, so it isnt the Hardware side of AMD that is failing, its the software. GCN is an extremely capable architecture.


edit: think of the software simlar to AMD and intel on cpu(without as big of a gap). The intel from sandy bridge to ivy was ~5% increase. the increase from Bulldozer to Vishera was greater than 10%.

 

[meneedhelp]

Heaven 3.0

306.23

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j357/russwood8814/00000-2.jpg

310.33

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j357/russwood8814/heaven_2012_10_23_16_34_01_020.jpg

Lower... but minimum FPS is better.

3Dmark Vantage:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dmv/4361482/3dmv/4308698

An increase but minute at best.

maxing everything on Unigine 3.0... my stock HD 7950 got: using the 12.11 beta driver...

1080p:

FPS:
40.5
Scores:
1020
Min FPS:
15.8
Max FPS:
99.5

 

[mohit9206]

let me know how it goes, I'm not installing them on mine.
I for one do not do beta..

same here. "beta" just sounds too risky and only for professionals/enthusiasts/risk takers etc
i for one will settle for 12.10 whql for now and install 12.11 whql when it comes out in november

 

[manofchalk]

Just ran 3DMark 11 Basic before and after installing the 12.11 Beta.
The difference is pretty dramatic.

The System.
3570k @ 4.2Ghz, Sapphire Radeon HD7870 (1150Mhz Core, 1375Mhz Memory), 8GB of 1600Mhz CL9 RAM. Benchmark was run from an OCZ Vertex 4 128GB (1.4 firmware) at ~50% capacity.
Any info about the bench itself is in the links, as well as more info on each stage of the test.
Using 3D Mark 11 v1.03.0

Before (12.10 driver).
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4740745
Score: P6825 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 6663
Physics Score :7839
Combined Score: 6747

After (12.11 Beta v4)
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4740914
Score: P8283 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 8458
Physics Score: 7996
Combined Score: 7525

That's a pretty big improvement. The 3D Mark Score went up by near 2000 and the Graphics score did the same, The Overall score by almost 800. Physics score stayed somewhat the same, but that's to be expected since that is largely CPU bound. Still, that is a pretty good result from a single driver update.

When I updated the driver to the Beta, it closed MSI Afterburner (disabling my overclock) and I didn't realize before it was through the test.
Results are pretty good on there as well, actually beats the 12.10 score despite the lack of overclocking.

Stock Clocks (1000Mhz Core, 1200Mhz Memory) on the 12.11 Beta
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4740809
Score: P7494 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 7400
Physics Score: 7991
Combined Score: 7515