Nvidia's GeForce GTX 480: Before And After A Year Of Driver Updates

[PudgyChicken]

Well this makes me feel markedly better about having 2x GTX 480s in SLI...

 

[acku]

[citation][nom]PudgyChicken[/nom]Well this makes me feel markedly better about having 2x GTX 480s in SLI...[/citation]

I aim to please!

Cheers,
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware.com

 

[Griffolion]

I'm sure i once read an article talking about NV and AMD releasing deliberately bad drivers at launch and then making incremental improvements over the life cycle of the product to give it perceived added value. It obviously doesn't work, but i can see where they are coming from, from a purely business point of view.

 

[thechief73]

Good article, I like these kind of analysis. AMD or Nvidia.

But... What is the issue everyone is talking about the AMD 5830??? Did I miss something?

 

[17seconds]

Since most video card reviews are done on the day the card is released, it is in the best interest of the card maker to have the best possible drivers available at that time.

On a related note, I think reviewers should re-bench the HD6850 and HD6870 (among others) that were released with drivers that incorporated Image Quality Hacks that improved performance by 6-10% at the expense of image quality. Most of these hacks have subsequently been removed from the latest drivers, but those original performance benches are still the ones being used for most comparisons.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-570-gf110-performance,2806-5.html

 

[eddieroolz]

NVidia's done a good job with their drivers. I prefer them over AMD simply because of better drivers.

 

[spentshells]

Good article, very interesting.

 

[wh3resmycar]

the 270 beta drivers toasted my gtx460.

 

[Cespenar]

Travish82, Guru3D did the same test using an i7 965 and the FPS in the same testing area was 55. I guess a newer CPU will help the FPS as much as the drivers.

 

[Reynod]

I like these kinds of articles ... it helps reinforce what we all tell users in the forums.

Update your drivers regularly !!

Thanks Andrew.

 

[jemm]

Great articles on Drive Updates for both AMD and Nvidia graphic cards.

 

[tux9656]

What about improvements in OpenGL performance? Some of us gamers don't run Windows.

 

[Guest]

It would be nice to see what happens with older video cards, they get some attention too? Is it better to use newer drivers?
More speed is very important for cards like a 9600GT...