Tested: Nvidia's Performance-Boosting GeForce 337.50 Driver

[bucknutty]

So I finally got to test out the TitanFall SLI profile. Only played 1 match (with afterburner logging game) seems to run better and SLI is enabled both my systems are getting 99% usage on card 2? and only 20-40% usage on Card 1. This is odd because in the other supported games the usage is almost identical on both cards. Also odd is that most of the work is on card 2 instead of card 1.
I have 2 systems, my main GTX470s and my older computer has Triple SLI GTS250s(3rd card was at 1% usage so I set the driver to dual SLI).

On the last driver was not getting the SLI indicator and card 2 was at 1% usage.

 

[PanzerIV]

Nvidia's revolutionary marketing driver. Guaranteed 150% better marketing to combat AMD Mantle hype.

Ya all this stupid hype for +3fps in BF4, seriously?!

 

[17seconds]

Looks pretty good actually when tested using the proper CPU limited scenario. Mantle-like performance gains from a simple driver update is a pretty good deal.
http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/geforce_337_50_beta_sli_performance_benchmarks.html

 

[doron]

You say that this is ".. one of the most impressive driver releases we've seen in a long time." and go as far as to say "Nvidia's point to all this is to show that you don't need a new API and developer support in order to be able to get performance gains", but where are the internal testing to back these claims?

You did not test cpu overhead, no input lag / frame time, no different configs, only one game with massive gains and you're sold.

You know what? When a new cpu / gpu comes out, just give it 4 benchies and if you're feeling impressed just copy paste the vendor slides into your article and you're done.

That's not the Tom's I know.

 

[krutou]

Am I the only one who finds Nvidia's marketing slides hilarious? They make it look like they are massively beating AMD when really all they are showing is that with their "Wonder Drivers" their $700 card beats AMD's $560 card by 12%. Wow what a victory Nvidia! /s

You're forgetting that its a test using an engine designed specifically for AMD.

12% more performance for 25% follows the standard going rate for GPUs (both AMD/Nvidia). For example, the R9-290X is 10% faster than the R9-290, but 20% more expensive.

If you're worried about absolute price/performance, you should be going for a $100 7770.

 

[AndyKurtis]

"... competition from AMD's Mantle API likely pushed Nvidia to develop these optimizations." That annoys me. Why aren't they just constantly trying their hardest to make it better by default?

 

[Lightbulbie]

It would be very interesting to test this drivers with a slower CPU (smth like FX-6300) and different GPUs. It should be very interesting cuz the main point of 337.50 is a reduced CPU overhead, so results should be even more impressive on a system with less powerful CPU.

I'll be testing this driver with a Athlon II X4 620 @2.6 pair with a GTX 660 OC. If NVIDIA is telling the truth, then (hopefully) I'll be getting better frames in most of my games. Pretty excited about this driver update.

 

[Steven Stuu]

I installed the driver on my ASUS GTX 770 and now i have lag issues on BF4. getting only 20fps on test range

 

[Mciahel]

I installed the driver on my ASUS GTX 770 and now i have lag issues on BF4. getting only 20fps on test range

Try rolling back. Cause 780 has done nothing but given me more frames.

 

[IInuyasha74]

I don't know if anyone else has stumbled across this yet, but with the new Nvidia 337.50 beta you can overclock your laptop. My 620M let me push it up 164Mhz or 26%. The RAM which was overclockable before is still able to be boosted but its a lot more stable. I'm at 50Mhz higher than the RAM used to be stable and its still stable. This is great!