The Battle of the Betas – Catalyst 14.4 versus GeForce 337.50

So as not to bottleneck our graphics, we are using Intel’s Haswell platform with our Core i7-4770K overclocked to 4.0GHz which is a good match for Ivy Bridge at 4.5GHz. We also use 16GB of Kingston’s “Beast” DDR3 clocked to 2133MHz, ECS’ flagship Z87 Golden Motherboard and a 2TB Toshiba HDD each for AMD and Nvidia drivers.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Test Configuration – Hardware
• Intel Core i7-4770K (reference 3.5GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 3.7GHz; overclocked to 4.0GHz; DX11 CPU graphics), supplied by Intel.
• ECS GANK Domination Z87H3-A2X motherboard (Intel Z87 chipset, latest BIOS, PCOe 3.0 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x) supplied by ECS

• Kingston 16GB HyperX Beast DDR3 PC2133 RAM (2×8 GB, dual-channel at 2100MHz, supplied by Kingston)
• PowerColor R9 290X PCS+, 4GB reference designs at Uber clocks.
• VisionTek R9 280X, 3GB, 1000MHz/1500MHz reference clocks, supplied by VisionTek
• PowerColor R9 270X PCS+, 2GB 1100/1425MHz PCS+ clocks, supplied by PowerColor
• Nvidia GTX 760, 2 GB reference design and clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Nvidia GTX 770 2GB reference design and clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Nvidia GTX 780 Ti, 3GB reference design and clocks, supplied by Nvidia
• Two 2TB Toshiba 7200 rpm HDDs
• Thermaltake ToughPower 775W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro CPU watercooler, supplied by Thermaltake
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP 3065 2560×1600 thirty-inch LCD

Test Configuration – Software

• Nvidia GeForce Beta 337.50 drivers. High Quality, prefer maximum performance, single display.
• AMD Catalyst 14.3 Beta 3 and Catalyst Release Candidate 14.4.  WHQL 14.4 was used to verify results versus the Release Candidate using R9 270X.
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• Latest DirectX
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• VSync is off in the control panel.
• AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average frame rates.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths; DX11 titles under DX11 render paths

The Benchmarks Synthetic

• 3DMark 11
• Firestrike – Basic & Extreme
• Heaven 4.0

DX9

• The Witcher 2
• Borderlands 2
• Aliens: Colonial Marines

DX10

• Crysis

DX11

• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• Civilization V
• Max Payne 3
• the Secret World
• Sleeping Dogs
• Sniper Elite V2
• Hitman: Absolution
• Far Cry 3
• Tomb Raider: 2013
• Crysis 3
• BioShock: Infinite
• Metro: Last Light
• GRID 2
• Splinter Cell: Blacklist
• Total War: Rome II
• Batman: Arkham Origins
• Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
• Thief

Nvidia Release notes on GeForce Beta 370.50 and performance results can be found in our earlier performance evaluation.

AMD Catalyst 14.4 RC Release Notes Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst™ 14.4 Release Candidate Driver for Windows

• Support for the AMD Radeon™ R9 295X
• CrossFire™ fixes enhancements:
  • Crysis 3 – frame pacing improvements
  • Far Cry 3 – 3 and 4 GPU performance improvements at high quality settings, high resolution settings
  • Anno 2070 – Improved CrossFire scaling up to 34%
  • Titanfall – Resolved in game flickering with CrossFire enabled
  • Metro Last Light – Improved Crossfire scaling up to 10%
  • Eyefinity 3×1 (with three 4K panels) no longer cuts off portions of the application
  • Stuttering has been improved in certain applications when selecting mid-Eyefinity resolutions with V-sync Enabled
• Full support for OpenGL 4.4
  • OpenGL 4.4 supports the following extensions:
    • ARB_buffer_storage
    • ARB_enhanced_layouts
    • ARB_query_buffer_object
    • ARB_clear_texture
    • ARB_texture_mirror_clamp_to_edge
    • ARB_texture_stencil8
    • ARB_vertex_type_10f_11f_11f_rev
    • ARB_multi_bind
    • ARB_bindless_texture
    • ARB_spare_texture
    • ARB_seamless_cubemap_per_texture
    • ARB_shader_draw_parameters
    • ARB_shader_group_vote
• Mantle beta driver improvements:
  • BattleField 4: Performance slowdown is no longer seen when performing a task switch/Alt-tab
  • BattleField 4: Fuzzy images when playing in rotated SLS resolution with an A10 Kaveri system

Known Issues

• System will TDR or BSOD when encoding with Power Director 11
• Driver installation might result in a black screen when installing on a Dual AMD Radeon R9 295X configuration under Windows 8.1. The issue can be overcome by rebooting the PC; upon reboot the display driver will be installed. The remaining Catalyst components can then be installed.

Let’s head to the charts and see the performance comparison in 22 games and in 3 synthetics since we recently tested the Galaxy GTX 760 versus the VisionTek R9 270X.