HD 7970 and HD 7770 Catalyst 12.3 vs. 12.2 Performance Analysis
Benchmarks & Conclusion
The HD 7970 is tested at higher settings and resolutions generally than the midrange HD 7770, as noted on the charts. All of our games are tested at two of these three resolutions: 2560×1600, 1920×1080, 1680×1050, with 16xAF, and we use DX11/10/10.1 whenever possible with an emphasis on DX11 games.
Here are the results of our twenty-five benchmarks – twenty-two games and three synthetics – compared between Catalyst 12.2 and 12.3
Results are measured in frames per second (fps) for games and “wins”marked in bold between 11.10 and 11.11; if there is a tie, both results will be in bold type. Vantage and 3DMark 11 are measured by “points” .
We note very little performance improvement over Catalyst 12.2 with Catalyst 12.3 in most games. Much of what we see, appear to be fixes and refinements. Do not forget to download and install the Catalyst Application Profiles for multi-GPU if applicable to your PC; they are downloaded in addition to Catalyst 12.3 from the same AMD support page.
To sum it up, we would recommend upgrading to Catalyst 12.3 because there are are a few advantages, and the pluses that we found nearly equal the few negatives. We also feel that it makes reasonable sense to generally use the latest WHQL drivers.
We will be back later this month to compare performance of Catalyst 12.3 versus 12.4. Perhaps we can also cover the new GeForce WHQLs when they are also released. In the meantime, up next is the Thermaltake Frio/Frio OCK CPU coolers evaluation (tonight) and we have Part two of the GTX 680 Arrives! Extreme Overclocking!! evaluation – overclocked and overvolted GTX 680 versus the overclocked and overvolted HD 7970 coming tomorrow. Happy gaming!
Please join us in our Forums
Become a Fan on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
For the latest updates from ABT, please join our RSS News Feed
Join our Distributed Computing teams
- Folding@Home – Team AlienBabelTech – 164304
- SETI@Home – Team AlienBabelTech – 138705
- World Community Grid – Team AlienBabelTechPlease join us in our Forums
