![\"\"](\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/LP2DX11-2011-05-01-17-50-46.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n <\/em>This driver performance evaluation will give us a natural comparison between the performance improvements for HD 6900 and HD 6800 series. Catalyst 11.5 was released at the beginning of this month and we naturally ask ourselves if there are any performance improvements for the new Radeon 6000 series in games. Beside testing with a single HD 6970 as last time, we are also going to compare HD 6870 performance with the latest Catalyst drivers.<\/p>\n The last performance analysis of Catalyst 11.4 beta vs. 11.3 vs. 11.2 was published here<\/a>. We are currently evaluating the WHQL Catalyst 11.5 drivers.\u00a0 We are using our overclocked Core i7-920 at 3.8 GHz and we use the same settings that we used for our Introducing AMD\u2019s HD 6790<\/a> article. This time we are not testing with CrossFire as a follow up to this evaluation<\/a> (Part 2, featuring CrossFire vs. SLI) using WHQL 11.5 will be published here later on this month. 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 11.5 against Catalyst 11.4 using our current benchmark suite of 27 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 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 generally using the same settings that we used for our Introducing AMD\u2019s HD 6790<\/a> article.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n Let’s look at some of the release notes from AMD<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 11.5 Windows release includes:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>New Features:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Hydravision enhancements for Eyefinity configurations.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System <\/strong><\/p>\n Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Performance charts & Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Here are our results of thirty benchmarks – twenty-seven games and three synthetics – compared between Catalyst 11.4 and 11.5.\u00a0 “Wins” are in bold<\/strong>; if there is a tie, both results will be in bold type.<\/p>\n We note a few performance improvements over Catalyst 11.4 with Catalyst 11.5 in a few games with the HD 6000 series. The performance trades back and forth and most of it is incremental – either way..<\/p>\n We are sorry that we did not have time to post the benches for CrossFire. However, we will have a new article on SLI versus CrossFire published here next week with Catalyst 11.5 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 11.5 from the same AMD support page).\u00a0 And this is important – if you are affected by the flashing “mouse cursor bug”, you want to try Catalyst 11.5a hotfix<\/a>!<\/p>\n To sum it up, we would recommend upgrading to Catalyst 11.5 because there are new features, and the pluses that we found outweigh that any slight and very few negatives.\u00a0 Even if you have an older series Radeon, it would be wise to upgrade just for the new features of Catalyst 11-5 and we will resume testing with that popular series next month.<\/p>\n We will be back next month to compare the performance of Catalyst 11.6 versus WHQL Catalyst 11.5.. Perhaps we can also cover the new GeForce WHQLs when they are (probably) released this month as the new 275 GeForce drivers which will bring good DX11 performance increases and new automatic updating of profile features to Nvidia’s cards. 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 11.5
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\n<\/strong>This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 11.5 software suite for Windows 7. These include:<\/p>\n\n
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\n<\/strong>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:<\/p>\n\n
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nConclusion<\/h3>\n
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