New X1800GTO & X1800XT use the CD's? or?

[DSebring]

First new Video cards I have bought in many years, and the first ATI cards.

These will both be going into new systems, the 1800XT in a Conroe system and the X1800GTO in an AMD system.

I am just wondering if it is a good idea install the drivers from the CD's that come with the cards (if they even do) or skip the CD's and go to ATI site and download the lateset Cataylist drivers instead?


Anyone have experiance to share?


Thanks

 

[macer1]

yes they come with the drivers on a cd.

I would say use the cd then check the ati site and update

 

[DSebring]

My main concern is clutter....


The last video card I bought (maybe 5 years ago) was an Asus Geforce3 Ti200 and the Asus CD installed a load of crud that I really did not need or want...

Grabbing the reference drivers off Nvidia site seemed the best for Nvidia based cards anyway..

I just have NO experaince with ATI and I do not know if the same is true for ATI?



Thanks

 

[badge]

First new Video cards I have bought in many years, and the first ATI cards.

These will both be going into new systems, the 1800XT in a Conroe system and the X1800GTO in an AMD system.

I am just wondering if it is a good idea install the drivers from the CD's that come with the cards (if they even do) or skip the CD's and go to ATI site and download the lateset Cataylist drivers instead?


Anyone have experiance to share?


Thanks

I recently bought and installed four new ATI cards. I used the latest ATI Radeon drivers from here:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293

Notice, unlike Nvidia, ATI cards must have NET Framework installed prior to installing the ATI driver. The first download on the link is Net Framework 2.0. If you are doing a new build, I believe the windows xp disk with SP2 installs Net Framework 2.0. Older versions of windows xp do not install Net Framework 2.0. They must have the system updates to aquire Net Framework 2.0 and the program's patches.

In any event, with two 9600GT's, x800gto and my 1800xt the driver CD that came with the cards contained older drivers than the one you will find listed on the link.

Using the driver CD that comes with your cards will work fine. I just skipped loading drivers twice to get to the latest driver.

 

[DSebring]

First new Video cards I have bought in many years, and the first ATI cards.

These will both be going into new systems, the 1800XT in a Conroe system and the X1800GTO in an AMD system.

I am just wondering if it is a good idea install the drivers from the CD's that come with the cards (if they even do) or skip the CD's and go to ATI site and download the lateset Cataylist drivers instead?


Anyone have experiance to share?


Thanks

I recently bought and installed four new ATI cards. I used the latest ATI Radeon drivers from here:

https://support.ati.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=894&task=knowledge&folderID=293

Notice, unlike Nvidia, ATI cards must have NET Framework installed prior to installing the ATI driver. The first download on the link is Net Framework 2.0. If you are doing a new build, I believe the windows xp disk with SP2 installs Net Framework 2.0. Older versions of windows xp do not install Net Framework 2.0. They must have the system updates to aquire Net Framework 2.0 and the program's patches.

In any event, with two 9600GT's, x800gto and my 1800xt the driver CD that came with the cards contained older drivers than the one you will find listed on the link.

Using the driver CD that comes with your cards will work fine. I just skipped loading drivers twice to get to the latest driver.


Thanks, good info about the .Net I had no idea.

I am really looking forward to this build next week, I think I am going to be very happy.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Pretty much the rule of thumb is that you should install the drivers from the CD so you can ensure you load all the goodies the mfr (Sapphire, Gigabte, Asus, etc) included as there might be additional monitoring software, additional video support, free DVD player, etc.

Then once that's done and you have your system up and running as they wanted you to, then check for stability issues and play with all the included apps.

Then decide your next step, upgrade to the latest drivers on the mfr's support page, or from ATi's main driver page (if you have a BuiltByATi card, then they're the same page).

Now if you don't like the .NET framework (of which there is now 3.0 [avilable from M$]) then you can stick with the basic display drivers, which require no .net but also don't give you all the advantages of the CatalystControlCentre;
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/6-8_xp-2k_dd_35179.exe

To get most of the CCC advanagtages (save the AVIVO video stuff then download ATiTrayTols and add that to help give you more things (like geometric instancing);
https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/6-8_xp-2k_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_35179.exe

Personally I'm fine with CCC and like the added features for video (even though I wouldn't have as much as you since you've got a X1K VPU and mine's a plain X-series.

For CCC you only 'NEED' .NET 1.1, but you should get the latest and greatest you can for the speed and stability boost. 2.0 w/ CCC is much faster than 1.1 and reduces the multiple CLI.exe instances (it's normal to have 1 CLI.exe per output [ie 3] running in your taskmanager/processes list) which can hog sufficient memory in a less than 1GB system. I have peronally have not noticed much difference between 2.0 and 3.0beta though, likely stability and security patches. Also if you properly tweak CCC it's not bad and not much slower. But if you're into getting the absolute fastest barebones OCing system you can, then stick with the ContolPanel basic driver version and skip the CCC. I don't like the .NET portion, but it's a tradeoff for some features. I just was using the CP version of CAT 6.7 (non-public driver) and just upgraded to 6.8CCC and there wasn't a noticeable difference in performane (probably 5% at best if I benched IMO).

Really the first thing to do is get it up and running clean with the CD provided as they intended. THEN learn about the tweaks you might want to look into, figure out what your needs are and then do that. A great source for information is Rage3D's forums, they have section dedicated to Catalyst tweaking, and Catalyst troubleshooting.

Also check out Tweakguide's Catalyst guide it covers Control Panel and Control Centre version and is update with just about ever version of the Catalyst drivers. There's alot of handy information in there including how to tweak both version to perform better;
http://www.tweakguides.com/ATICAT_1.html

Good Luck! 8)

 

[badge]

I just was using the CP version of CAT 6.7 (non-public driver) and just upgraded to 6.8CCC and there wasn't a noticeable difference in performane (probably 5% at best if I benched IMO).

Wow. You have a vast, inside understanding of computers and what makes them tick. I have inside knowledge of women and their ticking issues. 😀 But I'm in the dark where computer termonolgy is concerned. I just updated to the 6.7 Catalyst drivers a few weeks ago. On four machines. I too noticed this morning the 6.8 ver. was available. Next week I'll have to start at our Beach Blvd. office and work my way back to our main office and finally back here and update four of my computers to ver. 6.8. All for a 5% increase in performance 😀

Just a heads up if you or the OP or anyone is buying or thinking of buying Sapphire video cards. Of the four cards I have purchased, all from Sapphire, since May of this year, three have manufacturer rebates. My cost for the four cards was about $700 and three of cards had rebates totaling $65. I have not seen a dime from Sapphire rebates. One $15 rebate is for a 14 year old kid, I installed his new card for him.

I sent an email to Sapphire last week inquiring about my purchases and rebates. I didn't get a favorable reply. What rebate? is putting it a little harsh, but not far off. Anyway. I filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office in CA as well as the Better Business Bureau regarding Sapphire and their neglance in paying me the rebate money. :roll: I will get my rebates.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Next week I'll have to start at our Beach Blvd. office and work my way back to our main office and finally back here and update four of my computers to ver. 6.8. All for a 5% increase in performance 😀

I doubt it'd even be that much, there's been a few reviews of the diff and they ssem minor, my mention of the ~5% would be what I suspect the difference between CP and CCC might be at best.

Here's a quick rundown of the performance differences from a review I saw yesterday as I was downloading the 6.8s;
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reports/catalyst_68/2.html

They say 6.7->6.8 alone is 3%, but moving from 6.4->6.8 was 7%.

I sent an email to Sapphire last week inquiring about my purchases and rebates. I didn't get a favorable reply. What rebate? is putting it a little harsh, but not far off. Anyway. I filed a complaint with the Attorney General's office in CA as well as the Better Business Bureau regarding Sapphire and their neglance in paying me the rebate money. :roll: I will get my rebates.

You go mang! I hate that. It's happened to me a few times, even for my ATi AIW PCI 128 from way WAY back $30 doesn't seem like much but if it's what guides you fro one to the other (in this case making the 16MB significantly cheaper than the 32) or in your case where there's a bunch of them, then it matters. Hope you get satisfaction from the DA and eventually Sapphire.