![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Borderlands-2011-01-15-08-3.jpg\" "\\"Borderlands-2011-01-15-08-3\\"")
<\/a><\/em>This driver performance evaluation will give us a natural comparison between the performance improvements for HD 6900, HD 6800 and HD 5800 series.\u00a0 Catalyst 11.2 was released last week and we naturally ask ourselves if there are any performance improvements for the older HD 5000 series as well as the new Radeon 6000 series in games. Beside testing with a single HD 6970 and HD 6870 as last time, we are also going to compare HD 5870 performance with the latest Catalyst drivers.<\/p>\nThe last performance analysis of Catalyst 11.1a was published here<\/a>. We are currently evaluating the WHQL Catalyst 11.2 drivers. Now we are using our overclocked Core i7-920 at 3.8 GHz and we use the same settings that we used for our Galaxy\u2019s GTX 560 Ti GC \u2013 Introducing Nvidia\u2019s Titanium Hunter<\/a>. This time we are not testing with CrossFire as a CrossFire vs. SLI evaluation will be published here later this week. The percentage of change from upgrading the drivers should remain about the same for any capable CPU platform.<\/p>\n We are going to test Catalyst 11.2 against Catalyst 11.1a using our current benchmark suite of 29 games plus three synthetic benchmarks, Heaven 2.0, 3DMark11 and Vantage. Our testing platform is Windows 7 64-bit using Intel Core i7-920 at 3.80 GHz, 6 GB DD3, and our video cards are a single HD 5870, HD 6870 and a HD 6970 to represent the Radeons. All of our games are tested at two of these three resolutions: 2560×1600, 1920×1200, 1680×1050, with 16xAF, and we use DX11\/10\/10.1 whenever possible.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s get right to the test configuration, the driver’s release notes and the tests.<\/p>\n Test Configuration<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Test Configuration – Hardware <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Test Configuration – Software<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n The Benchmarks<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Please note that we are using the exact same settings that we used for our Galaxy\u2019s GTX 560 Ti GC \u2013 Introducing Nvidia\u2019s Titanium Hunter<\/a> article this week.\u00a0 The performance changes result solely from upgrading each driver from the previous one.<\/p>\n Lets look at some of the release notes from AMD regarding Catalyst 11.2 before we head to performance testing.<\/p>\n Lets look at some of the release notes from AMD’s site regarding Catalyst 11.2.<\/p>\n Highlights of the AMD Catalyst\u2122 11.2 Windows release includes:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>New Features:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>The new Catalyst Control Center features<\/strong><\/p>\n Support Video Quality settings during Blu-ray 3D playback<\/strong><\/p>\n Performance Improvements:<\/strong><\/p>\n Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System Let’s head to the charts and see if the promised performance improvements that AMD has made are realistic. Look for Part One of our SLI vs. CrossFire evaluation this week that will show the very latest CrossFire scaling.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Benchmarks & Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Here are our results of thirty-two benchmarks – twenty-nine games and three synthetics – compared between Catalyst 11.1a and 11.2. “Wins” are in bold<\/strong>; if there is a tie, both results will be in bold type.<\/p>\n We note some real performance improvement over Catalyst 11.1a with Catalyst 11.2 in many games with HD 6000 series. This is the second set of improvements involving multiple games that we have noticed in a long time – twice in two months; although admittedly, not as much as last month’s performance increases overall.<\/p>\n We also noted significant performance improvements in AMD’s Image Quality (IQ) which had slipped for a couple of month at the end of last year and it is now back to where they were, but without any performance penalty.\u00a0 We can recommend that you download and upgrade to the very latest drivers no matter which video card you have; HD 5800, 6800 or 6900 series.<\/p>\n We are sorry that we did not have time to post the benches for CrossFire.\u00a0 However, we will have a new article on SLI versus CrossFire published here this week and you will be able to check CrossFire scaling for yourself.\u00a0 Do not forget to download and install the Catalyst Application Profiles if applicable to your PC (they are downloaded in addition <\/em>to Catalyst 11.2 from the same AMD support page).<\/p>\n To sum it up, we would recommend upgrading to Catalyst 11.2 because there are real advantages, and the many pluses that we found outweigh that any slight and very few negatives. We also feel that it makes reasonable sense to use the latest WHQL drivers. \u00a0 Even if you have a HD 5000 series Radeon, it would be wise to upgrade just for the new features of Catalyst 11-2, never mind for a few good performance increases that we found. We also notice that the image quality of the “quality” (and even high quality) setting has improved over the last couple of driver sets since last year.<\/p>\n We will be back next month to compare the performance of Catalyst 11.2 versus 11.3 and perhaps we can also cover the new GeForce WHQLs when they are (probably) released next month as the last GeForce drivers brought good performance increases and features to Nvidia’s cards.\u00a0 And stay tuned for an important series on CrossFire vs. SLI; Part One will be up this week. Happy gaming!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please join us in our Forums<\/a><\/p>\n Become a Fan on Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us on Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n For the latest updates from ABT, please join our RSS News Feed<\/a><\/p>\n Join our Distributed Computing teams<\/p>\n
\nTest Configuration & Driver Release Notes<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n
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\n<\/em><\/li>\nRelease Notes Highlights for Catalyst 11.2
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\n<\/strong>This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst\u2122 11.2 software suite for Windows 7. These include:<\/p>\n\n
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