{"id":29187,"date":"2012-04-02T17:27:29","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T16:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29187"},"modified":"2012-04-08T04:36:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T03:36:44","slug":"hd-7970-and-hd-7770-catalyst-12-3-vs-12-2-performance-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/hd-7970-and-hd-7770-catalyst-12-3-vs-12-2-performance-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"HD 7970 and HD 7770 Catalyst 12.3 vs. 12.2 Performance Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n                       google_ad_client = \"pub-7021221536180758\"; \/* 468x60, created 11\/11\/09 *\/ google_ad_slot = \"1949837292\"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/dxhr-2011-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-27774\" title=\"dxhr-2011-1\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/dxhr-2011-1.jpg?resize=300%2C187\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/dxhr-2011-1.jpg?resize=300%2C187 300w, http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/dxhr-2011-1-1024x640.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>As part of an ongoing feature for AlienBabelTech, this editor is comparing the performance of 23 benchmarks with the current 12.3 WHQL monthly Catalyst driver release versus the last one from February. \u00a0Catalyst 12.3 was released last week and we naturally ask ourselves if there are any performance improvements for AMD Radeon 7000 series in games.<\/p>\n<p>Beside testing with a single HD 7970, we are also going to compare HD 7770 performance with the latest Catalyst drivers.\u00a0We are using our overclocked Core i7-920 at 4.2GHz and we use the same settings for the HD 6770 (and HD 4870) as in our \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=28819\">Sapphire HD 7770 GHz Overclocked edition evaluation<\/a>.\u00a0However, we use higher settings to test the HD 7970 as in our last major evaluation, <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=28910\">The GTX 680 Arrives!<\/a> \u00a0The percentage of change from upgrading the drivers should remain about the same for any capable CPU platform.<\/p>\n<p>We are going to test Catalyst 12.3 against Catalyst 12.2 using our current benchmark suite of 20 games plus three synthetic benchmarks, <em>Heaven 3.0<\/em>, 3DMark 11 and Vantage. Our testing platform uses Windows 7 64-bit and Intel Core i7-920 at 4.20GHz, 6 GB DD3, and our video cards are a single PowerColor HD 7970 and a Sapphire 7770 GHz OC editions.<\/p>\n<p>The HD 7970 is tested at higher settings and resolutions generally than the midrange HD 7770 \u00a0as noted on the charts. All of our games are tested at two of these three resolutions: 2560&#215;1600, 1920&#215;1080, 1680&#215;1050, with 16xAF, and we use DX11\/10\/10.1 whenever possible with an emphasis on DX11 games.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s get right to the test configuration, the driver release notes and the tests.<\/p>\n<p><!--pagetitle: Introduction--><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><strong>Test Configuration &amp; Driver Release Notes<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"font-size: large;\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Test Configuration<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Test Configuration &#8211; Hardware <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: left;\">\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Intel Core i7 920 (reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 4.2 GHz); Turbo is on (21x multiplier)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Gigabyte <\/span>EX58-UD3R <span style=\"font-size: small;\">(Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire\/SLI 16x+16x).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 18000 Kingston RAM (3&#215;2 GB, tri-channel at 1200MHz; 2&#215;2 GB supplied by Kingston)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz OverClock Edition \u00a0(1GB, 1000\/1250MHz) supplied by Sapphire<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">PowerColor Radeon HD 7970 (3GB, reference clocks, 925\/1375MHz)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Onboard Realtek Audio<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Thermaltake Frio OCK CPU cooler, supplied by Thermaltake<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">Philips DVD SATA writer<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: small;\">HP LP3065 2560&#215;1600 thirty inch LCD<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">Test Configuration &#8211; Software<\/span><\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ATi Catalyst 12.2 and 12.3 drivers for the HD 7770 and HD 7970; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; use application settings; surface performance optimizations are off<\/li>\n<li>Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates<\/li>\n<li>DirectX July\/November 2010<\/li>\n<li>All games are patched to their latest versions.<\/li>\n<li>vsync is forced off in the control panel.<\/li>\n<li>Varying AA enabled as noted in games and all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.<\/li>\n<li>All results show average frame rates.<\/li>\n<li>Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.<\/li>\n<li>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.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">The Benchmarks<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Please note that we are using the same settings that we used from our Sapphire HD 7770 evaluation\u00a0for the HD7770. We use higher settings to test the HD 7970 as in our last major evaluation, <em>The GTX 680 Arrives!,\u00a0<\/em>and the differences are marked on the charts. The performance changes result solely from upgrading each driver from the previous one.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vantage<\/li>\n<li>3DMark 11<\/li>\n<li><em><span style=\"font-style: normal;\">Heaven 3,0<\/span><\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Serious Sam 3 (&amp; Second Encounter 2010)<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Wolfenstein<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Left 4 Dead 1 <\/em>and<em> 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Crysis<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>World in Conflict<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Far Cry 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Just Cause 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Resident Evil 5<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Alien vs. Predator<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Battleforge<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> STALKER, Call of Pripyat<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>F1 2010<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Metro 2033<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> Lost Planet 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em> H.A.W.X. 2<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Civilization 5<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Total War: Shogun II<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>DiRT 3<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Deus Ex: Human Revolution<\/em><\/li>\n<li>\u00a0<em>Batman: Arkham City<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lets look at the Catalyst 12.3 <a href=\"http:\/\/support.amd.com\/us\/kbarticles\/Pages\/AMDCatalystSoftwareSuiteVersion1111.aspx\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/support.amd.com\/us\/kbarticles\/Pages\/AMDCatalystSoftwareSuiteVersion1111.aspx', 'release notes']);\" >release notes<\/a> from AMD before we head to performance testing.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Release Notes for Catalyst 12-3<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Always start <a href=\"http:\/\/support.amd.com\/us\/gpudownload\/Pages\/index.aspx\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/support.amd.com\/us\/gpudownload\/Pages\/index.aspx', 'here']);\" >here<\/a> to download AMD graphics drivers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.3 Windows release includes:<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">NEW FEATURES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong id=\"rrstrong0\">Full Support for AMD Radeon HD 7000 series of products<\/strong><strong id=\"rrstrong1\">\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul id=\"rrul7\">\n<li id=\"rrli45\">Catalyst 12.3 now fully supports the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 and AMD Radeon HD 7700 series of products<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">RESOLVED ISSUES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 12.3 software suite for Windows 7. These include:<\/p>\n<ul id=\"rrul8\" type=\"disc\">\n<li id=\"rrli46\">AMD Catalyst Control Center startup issues\/ delays have been resolved<\/li>\n<li>Tom Clancy HAWX: No longer crashes after task switching with MLAA (Morphological Anti-Aliasing) and Anti-Aliasing enabled<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli47\">Furmark Benchmark: No longer crashes when launched in High Performance mode.<strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli48\">Quake 4: No longer display corruption after task switching when run in High Performance mode<strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli49\">XPlane: Textures no longer exhibit flicker and corruption<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli50\">Skyrim: No longer displays flickering and texture corruption.<strong><\/strong><\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli51\">Alan Wake: A system crash is no longer experienced when running the game in DirectX 9 mode with Crossfire enabled<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli52\">Far Cry 2: A random system hang is no longer experienced when running the game at high in game setting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista \u00a0Operating System<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst\u2122 12.3 software suite for Windows Vista. These include:<\/p>\n<ul id=\"rrul9\" type=\"disc\">\n<li id=\"rrli46\">AMD Catalyst Control Center startup issues\/ delays have been resolved<\/li>\n<li>Enemy Territory Quake Wars : no longer exhibits random corruption<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">KNOWN ISSUES<br \/>\n<\/span><\/strong><strong>Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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<ul id=\"rrul10\">\n<li id=\"rrli54\">Vsync may be disabled after task switching when playing Rage<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli55\">Enemy Territory Quake Wars may crash when launched in High Performance mode<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli56\">Crysis 2 may hang randomly when run in DirectX 11 mode.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Known issues under the Windows Vista operating system<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst\u2122. These include:<\/p>\n<ul id=\"rrul11\">\n<li id=\"rrli57\">The Catalyst Control Center may not display if launched while using WinDVD to play a BluRay disc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Known issues under the Windows XP operating system<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst\u2122. These include:<\/p>\n<ul id=\"rrul12\">\n<li id=\"rrli58\">The system may hang when playing Dirt 3 at maximum in-game settings<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli59\">The system may hang when launching Crysis \u2013 Warhead at maximum in game settings<\/li>\n<li id=\"rrli60\">Dragon Age 2 may display random graphics corruption.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s head to the charts and see if there are any improvements in 22 games and 3 synthetic benches since we tested last.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><!--pagetitle: Test Configuration--><!--nextpage--><!--pagetitle: Conclusion--><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px;\"><span style=\"font-size: small;\"><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><strong>Benchmarks &amp; Conclusion<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">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&#215;1600, 1920&#215;1080, 1680&#215;1050, with 16xAF, and we use DX11\/10\/10.1 whenever possible with an emphasis on DX11 games.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here are the results of our twenty-five benchmarks &#8211; twenty-two games and three synthetics &#8211; compared between Catalyst 12.2 and 12.3<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Results are measured in frames per second (fps) for games and &#8220;wins&#8221;marked in <strong>bold<\/strong> between 11.10 and 11.11; if there is a tie, both results will be in bold type.\u00a0 Vantage and 3DMark 11 are measured by &#8220;points&#8221; .<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Untitled-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Untitled-1\" src=\"http:\/\/i1.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Untitled-1.jpg?resize=629%2C465\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Untitled-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Untitled-2\" src=\"http:\/\/i0.wp.com\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Untitled-2.jpg?resize=631%2C466\" alt=\"\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We note very little performance improvement over Catalyst 12.2 with Catalyst 12.3 in most games<em>.<\/em> Much of what we see, appear to be fixes and refinements. \u00a0Do not forget to download and install the Catalyst Application Profiles for multi-GPU if applicable to your PC; they are downloaded <em>in addition <\/em>to Catalyst 12.3 from the same AMD support page.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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<em><\/em>.\u00a0 In the meantime, up next is the Thermaltake Frio\/Frio OCK CPU coolers evaluation (tonight) and we have Part two of the <em>GTX 680 Arrives! Extreme Overclocking!!<\/em> evaluation &#8211; overclocked and overvolted GTX 680\u00a0versus the overclocked and overvolted \u00a0HD 7970\u00a0coming tomorrow. \u00a0 Happy gaming!<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Please join us in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Forums<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Become a Fan on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/AlienBabelTech\/123268467142', 'Facebook']);\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow us on <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/twitter.com\/alienbabeltech', 'Twitter']);\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n<p>For the latest updates from ABT, please <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?feed=rss2\" target=\"_blank\">join our RSS News Feed<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Join our Distributed Computing teams<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Folding@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 164304<\/li>\n<li>SETI@Home &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech &#8211; 138705<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1\" onclick=\"_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/www.worldcommunitygrid.org\/reg\/viewRegister.do?teamID=3P39R3SRV1', 'World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech']);\" target=\"_blank\">World Community Grid &#8211; Team AlienBabelTech<\/a>Please join us in our <a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/abt\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">Forums<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/?p=29187\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=top title=\"Author: Mark Poppin\" src=\"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Catalyst-12-3-Performance-A.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":29282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2533,7814,5,4454,4453],"tags":[72,5152,5151,4499,5153,5111,5012],"class_list":["post-29187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abt-news","category-articles","category-gaming","category-mini-reviews","category-software-2","tag-amd","tag-catalyst-12-2","tag-catalyst-12-3","tag-driver-performance","tag-evaluation","tag-hd-7770","tag-hd-7970"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/alienbabeltech.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}