Catalyst 11.2 vs. 11.1a Performance Analysis

Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-920 reference 2.66GHz and overclocked to 3.8GHz (3.97GHz with 21x multiplier); Turbo is on.
• Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
• 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC18000 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at PC 1600 speeds; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
• AMD Radeon HD 6870 (1GB, reference clocks) supplied by AMD
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6970 (2GB, reference clocks) supplied by AMD
• Diamond Radeon HD 5870 (1GB references clocks)
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 hard drive
• Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
• Noctua UH-U12P SE2 CPU cooler, supplied by Noctua
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD/SOYO 1920×1200 twenty-four inch LCD

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 11.2 drivers for HD 5870, HD 6870 and HD 6970; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver, Catalyst AI set to “Standard” where available; surface performance optimizations are off
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• DirectX July/November 2010
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• vsync is forced off in the control panel.
• Varying AA enabled as noted in games and “forced” in Catalyst Control Center for UT3 and Batman: Arkham Asylum; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average framerates except as noted.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

Please note that we are using the exact same settings that we used for our Galaxy’s GTX 560 Ti GC – Introducing Nvidia’s Titanium Hunter article this week.  The performance changes result solely from upgrading each driver from the previous one.

• Vantage
• 3DMark11
• F.E.A.R.
• X3:Terran Conflict
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
• Call of Duty 4
• Unreal Tournament 3
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
• Wolfenstein
• Left 4 Dead
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Borderlands
  
• Mafia II
• Call of Juarez
• Crysis
• Warhead
  
• Lost Planet
• World in Conflict
  
• Far Cry 2
• Just Cause 2
• H.A.W.X.
• Resident Evil 5
• Alien vs. Predator
• Battleforge
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• Dirt 2
• F1 2010
  
• Metro 2033
• Lost Planet 2
• H.A.W.X. 2
• Heaven 2

Lets look at some of the release notes from AMD regarding Catalyst 11.2 before we head to performance testing.

Release Notes Highlights for Catalyst 11.2

Lets look at some of the release notes from AMD’s site regarding Catalyst 11.2.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 Windows release includes:

New Features:

The new Catalyst Control Center features

• Catalyst AI Texture Filtering updates
  • The Quality setting has now been improved to match the High Quality setting in all respects but one;  it enables an optimization that limits tri-linear anisotropic filtering to areas surrounding texture mipmap level transitions, while doing bilinear anisotropic filtering elsewhere.  This optimization offers a way to improve filtering performance without visibly affecting image quality
  • The Performance setting has been updated to address the sharpness of the default Quality setting causing shimmering in certain cases.  It now provides a smoother filtering option that eliminates most shimmering while preserving the improved detail provided by anisotropic filtering.
• Tessellation Controls
  • Supported on the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series and the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series
  • New settings give users full control over the Tessellation levels used in applications.
    • The default selection “AMD Optimized” setting is intended to set the best level of Tessellation on a per application basis.   The “AMD Optimized” setting is designed to help users get the maximum visual benefit of Tessellation, while minimizing the performance impact associated with enabling Tessellation.    Currently no applications have been profiled.
    • The “Use Application Settings” option gives applications full control over the Tessellation level.
    • Users can also manually set the maximum tessellation level used by applications with the slider control
• Morphological Anti-Aliasing support for the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series
  • AMD Catalyst now includes official support for Morphological Anti-Aliasing for the ATI Radeon HD 5000 Series

Support Video Quality settings during Blu-ray 3D playback

• Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series
• Requires Blu-ray 3D player software, 3D supported display and 3D Stereoscopic glasses
• Users can now enable the Video Quality settings within the Catalyst Control Center when playing Blu-ray 3D content

Performance Improvements:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops:
  • Performance increases up to 11% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing enabled
• Batman Arkham Asylum:
  • Performance increases up to 4% on ATI Radeon™ HD 5000 Series single configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

• Corruption is no longer randomly observed running the Unigine Heaven benchmark.
• Texture corruption is no longer observed when running the Unigine Heaven benchmark with Super AA enabled in the Catalyst Control Center.
• HAWX no longer intermittently displays corruption when running in DirectX 9 mode.
• Visual corruption is no longer seen when running Lost Planet in DirectX 10 mode.
• Playing a 720p WMV format file no longer randomly causes laggy system performance.
• Video corruption no longer intermittently affects the display when playing a SD format DVD using Windows Media Player.
• Choppy video playback is no longer observed when playing a DVD with interlaced content using WinDVD 10.
• 8x Anti Aliasing is now correctly listed as available with certain 3D applications.
• The AMD Ladybug demo no longer freezes when viewed in camera mode.
• DirectX 9.0 games no longer show intermittent corruption at the bottom of one of the cloned displays.

Let’s head to the charts and see if the promised performance improvements that AMD has made are realistic. Look for Part One of our SLI vs. CrossFire evaluation this week that will show the very latest CrossFire scaling.