The War of the WHQLs: Catalyst 13.1 vs. GeForce 310.90 – HD 7970 GHz vs GTX 680 revisited
Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes
Test Configuration
Test Configuration – Hardware
- Intel Core i7 3770K (overclocked to 4.5GHz); Turbo is on.
- EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard (Intel Z77 chipset, latest beta BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x using Plex chip.)
- 8GB Kingston DDR3 PC1866 Kingston RAM (4×2 GB, dual-channel at 1866MHz; supplied by Kingston)
- Sapphire Vapor-X CPU cooler, on loan from Sapphire
- Power Color Radeon HD 7970 (3GB, overclocked to GHz speeds 1050/6000MHz)
- Nvidia GTX 680 (2GB, 1006/6008MHz, reference clocks), supplied by Nvidia
- Onboard Realtek Audio
- Genius SP-HF 800A speakers, two pairs in 4.0 Quadraphonic configuration, supplied by Genius
- Two identical 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drives configured and set up identically from drive image; one partition for Nvidia GeForce drivers and one for ATI Catalyst drivers
- Kingston 240GB HyperX SSD used for Hitman: Absolution. Supplied by Kingston
- Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
- Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
- Philips DVD SATA writer
- HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD
- ASUS VG278 27″ 3D Vision 2 Ready 120Hz display, supplied by ASUS and used to test Hitman: Absolution frame times.
Test Configuration – Software
- ATi Catalyst 13-1 WHQL drivers; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; use application settings; surface performance optimizations are off
- NVIDIA GeForce WHQL 310.90. High Quality; Single-display Performance mode; Prefer Maximum Performance
- Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
- Latest DirectX
- All games are patched to their latest versions.
- vsync is forced off in the control panels.
- Varying AA enabled as noted in games; all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
- All results show average frame rates
- 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
- Synthetic
- Vantage
- 3DMark 11
- Heaven 3.0
DX9- Left 4 Dead 2
- Serious Sam 3 BFE
- Alan Wake: Ameican Nightmare
DX10- Crysis
- Far Cry 2
- Just Cause 2
- World-in-Conflict: Soviet Assault
- Resident Evil 5
DX11- BattleForge
- Alien vs. Predator
- STALKER, Call of Pripyat
- Metro 2033
- F1 2010
- H.A.W.X. 2
- Lost Planet 2
- Total War: Shogun II
- Civilization V
- Crysis 2
- Dirt 3
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Batman: Arkham City
- Battlefield 3
- Max Payne 3
- the Secret World
- Borderlands 2
- Sleeping Dogs
- Hitman: Absolution
Lets look at the release notes from AMD regarding the Catalyst 13.1 driver as well as for the GeForce 310.90 before we head to performance testing. First up, the highlights of the new GeForce driver.
Release Notes Highlights for GeForce 310.90
Please see the GeForce 310.90 Release Highlights
This GeForce driver is recommended for the best experience in the blockbuster holiday games. GeForce R310 drivers add optimizations for Far Cry 3, providing up to 38% faster performance.
These drivers also include optimizations for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Assassin’s Creed III, providing up to 26% faster performance in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and up to 18% faster performance in Assassin’s Creed III, as well as smooth, shimmer-free graphics with TXAA antialiasing in both games.
New in GeForce 310.90:
- Adds a security update for the NVIDIA Display Driver service (nvvsvc.exe).
- Improves performance for GeForce GTX 690:
- Up to 19% faster performance in Autodesk 3ds Max when interacting with large models compared to GeForce GTX 480.
- Up to 60% faster performance in ray tracing applications such as NVIDIA iray and Chaos V-Ray (subject to the scene fitting into graphics memory) compared to GeForce GTX 480.
- Up to 76% faster performance in the 3D extruded ray tracing capability in Adobe After Effects compared to GeForce GTX 480.
- Updates SLI profiles for Far Cry 3 and NBA2k13.
- Adds new 3D Vision profiles for the following games:
- Aliens: Colonial Marines – rated Fair
- GT Legends – rated 3D Vision Ready
- LEGO: Lord of the Rings – rated Good
- Miasmata – rated Good
- Pirate101 – rated 3D Vision Ready
- Viking: Battle for Asgard – rated Excellent
- Warframe – rated Good
- Wizard101 – rated 3D Vision Ready
New in GeForce R310 Drivers:
- Performance Boost – Increases performance for GeForce 400/500/600 Series GPUs in several PC games vs. GeForce 306.97 WHQL drivers. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:
GeForce GTX 680:
- Up to 38% in Far Cry 3
- Up to 26% in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
- Up to 16% in Battlefield 3
- Up to 18% in Assassin’s Creed III
- Up to 9% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Up to 6% in Medal of Honor: Warfighter
- Up to 6% in StarCraft II
- Up to 6% in Dragon Age II
- Up to 6% in Batman: Arkham City
- Up to 5% in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
GeForce GTX 660:
- Up to 24% in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
- Up to 10% in Battlefield 3
- Up to 7% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Up to 6% in Far Cry 3
- Up to 5% in Dragon Age II
- Up to 5% in Assassin’s Creed III
- Up to 4% in Batman: Arkham City
- Up to 4% in Medal of Honor: Warfighter
- NVIDIA SLI Technology – Adds or updates the following SLI profiles:
- Far Cry 3 – updated SLI profile
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – updated SLI profile
- Dirt: Showdown – updated SLI profile
- Dota 2 – updated SLI profile
- Dou Zhan Shen – updated SLI profile
- F1 2012 – added SLI profile
- FIFA 13 – added SLI profile
- Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad – updated SLI profile
- Hawken – added SLI profile
- Hitman: Absolution – added SLI profile
- Natural Selection 2 – added SLI profile
- Primal Carnage – added SLI profile
- NVIDIA 3D Vision – Adds or updates the following 3D Vision profiles:
- 007 Legends – rated Fair
- Assassin’s Creed III – rated Not Recommended
- Bloody Good Time – rated Good
- Bullet Run – rated Fair
- Bunch of Heroes – rated Good
- CABAL2 – rated Good
- Call of Duty Black Ops 2 – rated Good
- Carrier Command: Gaea Mission – rated 3D Vision Ready
- Dark Souls – rated Fair
- Dishonored – rated Fair
- Euro Truck Simulator 2 – rated Excellent
- FIFA 13 – rated Good
- Hawken – rated 3D Vision Ready
- Hitman: Absolution – rated Fair
- I Am Alive – rated Fair
- Lucius – rated Fair
- Mabinogi Heroes – rated Fair
- Medal of Honor: Warfighter – rated Fair
- Metro: Last Light – rated Good
- MLB 2K12 – rated Fair
- NBA 2K12 – rated Good
- NBA 2K13 – rated Good
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted – rated Fair
- Of Orcs and Men – rated Fair
- Painkiller: Hell & Damnation – rated Fair
- Planetside 2 – rated Not Recommended
- Prepar3D – rated Good
- Sniper Elite V2 – rated Poor
- Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 – rated Poor
- The Amazing Spider-Man – rated Not Recommended
- Tiny Troopers – rated Fair
- Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD – rated Good
- Total War Battles: SHOGUN – rated Good
- Unmechanical – rated Good
- War of the Roses rated Fair
- World Rally Championship 3 rated Good
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown rated Fair
- Other Profile Updates
- Updated NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Counter-strike: Global Offensive
- Added NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Cross Fire
- Updated NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Darksides 2
- Added NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Dragon Nest
- Updated NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Guild Wars 2
- Updated NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Mechwarrrior Online
- Added NVIDIA Control Panel ambient occlusion support for Meng San Guo
- NVIDIA CUDA
- Includes support for applications built using CUDA 5 or earlier version of the CUDA Toolkit. More information at http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit
- NVIDIA SSAA
- Added negative LOD adjustments for NVIDIA’s full-screen sparse grid supersampling mode to improve image sharpness.
Additional Details
- Installs PhysX System Software 9.12.1031. This version fixes a bug that caused some applications including Unreal Tournament III, Trine, and Metro 2033 not to launch.
- Installs HD Audio v1.3.18.0.
- Supports OpenGL 4.3 for GeForce 400-series and later GPUs.
- Supports DisplayPort 1.2 for GeForce GTX 600 series GPUs.
- Supports multiple languages and APIs for GPU computing: CUDA C, CUDA C++, CUDA Fortran, OpenCL, DirectCompute, and Microsoft C++ AMP.
- Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel and AMD motherboards.
Now lets look at the release notes from AMD regarding Catalyst 12.11 Beta drivers. Please note that the Catalyst Control Center has been changed and we rather like it.
Always start here to download AMD graphics drivers.
FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AMD CATALYST 13.1 WHQL DRIVER:
AMD Catalyst Control Center: New 3D settings and profile management user interface:
AMD Catalyst 13.1 features a newly designed 3D application settings page, designed to allow users to more easily adjust and control their 3D settings on a per application basis.
Performance Highlights of AMD Catalyst 13.1 (vs. AMD Catalyst 12.10): Includes all of the performance improvements found in AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 11
- Performance gains seen on the entire AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series:
- All game were tested at high / extreme / ultra levels
- Enhanced performance in Far Cry 3 (up to 25% with 8xMSAA, SSAO enabled @ 1600p, and up to 15% with 8xMSAA, HDAO enabled @1600p) (AMD Catalyst 12.11 CAP2 must also be installed)
- Enhanced AMD CrossFire™ scaling performance in Call of Duty Black Ops 2
- Up to 10%-15% more performance in Battlefield 3 in most cases
- • More than 20% in certain missions and sequences (Comrades)
- Up to 7% more performance in Metro 2033
- Up to 10% more performance in DiRT Showdown
- Up to 8% more performance in Sleeping Dogs
- Up to 12% more performance in Civilization V
- Up to 10% more performance in StarCraft II
- Up to 8% more performance in Sniper Elite: V2
- Up to 5% more performance in Max Payne 3
- AMD Catalyst Mobility 7970M performance for AMD Enduro™ technology supported platforms has been improved for DirectX® 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications:
- 3DMark® 06 – Up to 6%
- 3DMark Vantage – Up to 15%
- 3DMark 11 – Up to 12%
- AvP – Up to 11%
- Battlefield 3 – Up to 25%
- Call of Duty: Black Ops – Up to 13%
- Crysis 2: Up to 45%
- DiRT Showdown – Up to 62%
- ETQW – Up to 8%
- Hard Reset – Up to 8%
- Just Cause 2 – Up to 90%
- Mafia 2 – Up to 40%
- The Chronicles of Riddick – Up to 4%
- Shogun 2 – Up to 56%
- StarCraft 2 – Up to 25%
- Skyrim – Up to 45%
- Sniper Elite V2 – Up to 60%
- Tom Clancy’s HAWX – Up to 56%
- Unigine Heaven – Up to 33%
- Wolfenstein – Up to 9%
Resolved Issues for the Windows 8 / Windows 7 Operating Systems:
This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 13.1 software suite.
- A sporadic system hang encountered with a single AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series GPU seen on X58 and X79 chipsets.
- An intermittent hang encountered with AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series GPUs in an AMD CrossFire + Eyefinity setup.
- Missing fonts in XBMC
- No video found in Media Player Classic Home Cinema when using full or half floating point processing
- Skyrim lighting (missing a lighting pass) for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
- Skyrim cloud corruption experience in various in game locations
- A hang playing Dishonored on the AMD Radeon HD 6000 and AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series
- Engine and memory clocks running too high when the GPU is idle.
- GPU activity runs at lower values than expected seen on the AMD Radeon HD 7870.
- Corruption seen in Darkness 2 and Carrier Command when using AMD CrossFire configurations
- Adobe Premier Pro CS6 may fail to launch
- Hang experienced with AMD Crossfire and Eyefinity enabled on X58 and X78 chipsets
- Corel PaintShop Pro X3 – Hangs at the “Initializing Command Manager” window
- Company of Heroes 2 – display corruption experienced when AA is enabled in the AMD Catalyst Control Center
- Cyberlink Powerdirector 10 crashes intermittently.
- Company of Heroes : Tales of Valor – Flickering experienced when AA is disabled
- Max Payne 3 – Flickering experienced in DirectX 9 mode with forced AA enabled
- Cyberlink PoweDVD 10 – crashes intermittently
- VLC – Green texture corruption seen in 720p MPEG2 video clips
- Black screen encountered when “Alternate DVI mode” is enabled in the AMD Catalyst Control Center
- Green display corruption seen in Skype webcam video
Known Issues
The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced with the AMD Catalyst 13.1 software suite.
Known issues under the Windows 8 Operating System.
- Sleeping Dogs – game may fail to launch in certain configurations
Known issues under the Windows 7 Operating System.
- Shogun 2 – Total War : flickering experienced when game is run in medium quality mode
Installing the AMD Catalyst Software Driver
For further information and general help on software driver installation, game issues, and more, visit AMD Customer Care.
Installation information can be found at: How to Install Your AMD Product.
Let’s head to the charts and see the performance comparison in 27 games and in 3 synthetics since we tested the GTX 680 versus the HD 7970 last.
How about giving a bit more information how you benchmark? Real gameplay with savegames (preferred) or integrated benchmarks?
thanks! great article!!
7970 GHZ EDITION IS A FACTORY OVERCLOCKED SOLUTION (AND EXISTS AT LOW QUANTITIES IN MARKET)
GTX680 IS NOT A OVERCLOCKED SOLUTION
COMPARING A DEFAULT CLOCKED SOLUTION WITH A RARE OVERCLOCKED SOLUTION IS STUPID AND UNFAIR….
Yo dawg if you read it you’ll see that they took a regular PowerColor card and overclocked it to 1050mhz on the core clock and 600 effective on the memory. It’s a regular 7970 card.