Catalyst 11.5 Performance Analysis

Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-920 reference 2.66GHz and overclocked to 3.8GHz; Turbo is off.
• 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
• 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 WHQL 11.4 and 11.5 drivers for HD 6870 and HD 6970 (stock settings); highest quality; use application settings; 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; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis and Warhead.
• 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 generally using the same settings that we used for our Introducing AMD’s HD 6790 article.  The HD 6970 was sometimes benched at a different resolution than the HD 6870 as noted on the chart. 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
• Serious Sam, Second Encounter HD (2010)
• Wolfenstein
• Left 4 Dead
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Mafia II
• Call of Juarez
• Crysis
• Warhead
  
• Lost Planet
• World in Conflict
  
• Far Cry 2
• Just Cause 2
• BattleForge
• H.A.W.X.
• Resident Evil 5
• Alien vs. Predator
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• Dirt 2
• F1 2010
  
• Metro 2033
• Lost Planet 2
• H.A.W.X. 2
• Heaven 2.5

Let’s look at some of the release notes from AMD regarding Catalyst 11.5 before we head to performance testing. They look like mostly bug fixes and feature enhancements and the list is very short and sweet.

Release Notes Highlights for Catalyst 11.5

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.5 Windows release includes:

New Features:

Hydravision enhancements for Eyefinity configurations.

• The HydraGrid feature found in HydraVision is now aware of user created Bezels.
• The HydraGrid feature found in HydraVision now also includes as “Automatic Grid” option that aligns to the user defined Eyefinity display layout.

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System
This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.5 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

• PowerDVD no longer randomly crashes when HDMI 8 Channel Audio is enabled.
• Avivo settings are now correctly displayed in the AMD Vision Engine Control Center after connecting a secondary display.
• Windows Media Player no longer randomly hangs or displays a black screen after playing VC1 (WMV) video files for over 4 hours.
• PowerDVD no longer crashes intermittently after enabling / disabling Crossfire during BD playback.
• Bioshock no longer displays visual corruption with Vsynch and MLAA enabled.
• Transcoding MPEG-2 video to H.264 no longer causes an application crash.
• Transcoding H.264 to AVCHD no longer generates lagging video.

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

• Civilization V no longer stops responding during game launch when Crossfire is enabled.

Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:

• Some BD content may experience jittery playback using WinDVD.
• Quake 4 may display random horizontal corruption during gameplay.
• Random tearing might be observed while playing Riddick 2 with high game settings and Crossfire enabled.  (This issue has been resolved with the Catalyst 11.5a hotfix)
• Random video jitter may be observed while playing 1080i BD video with Aero mode disabled.
• Kings Bounty may display rendering issues.
• The mouse cursor may lag in some situations. (This issue has been resolved with the Catalyst 11.5a hotfix)

Let’s head to the charts and see if there are any performance improvements. Look for our continuing SLI vs. CrossFire evaluation next week that will show the very latest CrossFire scaling with WHQL 11-5.