GTX470 Performance Test Part 3: Driver 258.96
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We immediately see an average performance gain of 5.11% across the board from the new driver, which is a good start. Hell’s Highway already ran well on the GTX470, and this driver makes it run even better. Also the GTX470 is finally able to beat the GTX285 in Crysis at the settings I play the game at.
Unfortunately even with the performance gain in Crysis Warhead the GTX470 is still slower than the GTX285. Likewise, the GTX470 still significantly trails the GTX285 in Call of Duty 5, even with the minor performance gain from the new driver.
Thanks! There appears to be substantial increases in performance for some games with the newer drivers, which are very nice..
So what bothers me is that every site out there has the stock 470 beating the 5850 and sometimes even catching the 5870 in terms of performance…
And then this site says that the performance is on par with the 285… :/
Just the performance seems really, really low
Phanbuey:
Most websites stick to half a dozen or so games, often with synthetics thrown in for good measure. Additionally, almost no reviewer uses TrAA or super-sampling, and most generally stick to 4xAA. I benchmark far more games and use far more diverse settings.
I saw the same thing during the G80 launch days where almost every website was heaping glowing praise on the 8xxx series, but my own benchmarks showed something quite different behind that facade. A quick trip to the open forums back then also revealed other gamers having a plethora of issues in games not benchmarked in standard reviews.
The fact is, the GTX470 currently isn’t that great for DX9 and OpenGL performance compared to the GTX285.
Oh, and driver 258.96 consistently BSODs my system when I attempt regular Bluray playback. When I roll back to 197.41, everything works perfectly.
I really appreciate the feedback.
I really like the work you guys do on this site (especially the IQ comparisons between camps). In any case its good to know that the settings have such an impact on the performance of the card. Hopefully the drivers will be squared away soon.
Phanbuey, I hope to write an in-depth IQ article about the GF100 soon.
I really like the care and attention paid to the reviews here. This was news to me regarding the low DX9 performance of the 470, I assume the 400 series, relative to it’s performance numbers in DX10/11.
Benching with TrSS is nice to see too, that’s why a gamer like buys these cards, to run the settings that really make games look the best.