Catalyst 11.3 and 11.4 beta vs. 11.2 Performance Analysis

Performance charts & Conclusion

Here are our results of thirty-one benchmarks – twenty-eight games and three synthetics – compared between Catalyst 11.2 and 11.3.  The HD 6970 was also benched with (*) Beta Catalyst 11.4 preview drivers.  “Wins” are in bold; if there is a tie, both (or all three) results will be in bold type.

Conclusion

We note a few performance improvements over Catalyst 11.2 with Catalyst 11.3 in a couple of games with HD 6000 series. However, we see large performance increases with Catalyst 11.4 beta as tested with the HD 6970. This is the third set of improvements involving multiple games that we have noticed in a long time and we are looking forward to the WHQL drivers.

We are sorry that we did not have time to post the benches for CrossFire. However, we will have a new article on SLI versus CrossFire published here in two weeks with Catalyst 11.4 when it becomes WHQL and you will be able to check CrossFire scaling for yourself. Do not forget to download and install the Catalyst Application Profiles if applicable to your PC (they are downloaded in addition to Catalyst 11.3 from the same AMD support page).

To sum it up, we would recommend upgrading to Catalyst 11.3 because there are new features, and the many pluses that we found outweigh that any slight and very few negatives. However, if you are looking for performance, definitely try out the beta 11.4s.  Even if you have a HD 5000 series Radeon, it would be wise to upgrade just for the new features of Catalyst 11-3 (or beta 11.4).

We will be back later this month to compare the performance of Catalyst 11.3 versus WHQL Catalyst 11.4 unless we cover it in our CrossFire versus SLI series.  Perhaps we can also cover the new GeForce WHQLs when they are (probably) released this month as the last 270 beta GeForce drivers brought good DX11 performance increases and features to Nvidia’s cards.  Happy gaming!

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