Catalyst 10.5 and GeForce 197.75 performance analysis
Benchmarks & Conclusion
Here are our results of 21 benchmarks – 20 games and one synthetic – compared between Catalyst 10-4 and 10-5 and GeForce 197.41 versus 197.75
“Wins” are in bold; if there is a tie, both results will be in bold type.
Here is the GTX 480 benched with GeForce 197.41 vs 197.75
We see almost no significant performance improvement over Catalyst 10-4 with Catalyst 10-5. The only games that we tested that showed more than a slight improvement was Just Cause 2 and Lost Planet. Conversely, Call of Defense showed a decline in performance with Catalyst 10-5. However, we would recommend upgrading to Catalyst 10.5 because there is no real disadvantage and whatever slight plusses we found outweigh any slight negatives and it makes reasonable sense to use the latest WHQL drivers . Of course, if you have a 5000 series Radeon, it would be wise to upgrade just for the features of Catalyst 10.5
On the other hand, we see no reason to upgrade from GeForce 197.41 unless you find bugs that 197.75 addresses. We are certainly looking forward to the next driver set as they seem to promise a performance increase with the next set (if the betas are any indication).
We will be back later this month to compare performance of Catalyst 10.5 versus 10.4 and perhaps we can also cover the new GeForce WHQLs when they are released later this month. Happy gaming!
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Doesn’t look like the site gets much love. Anyway, just wanted to know I appreciated these type of articles. Rarely do you get up to date driver performance reviews with so many games on other mainstream sites.
Thanks, Edwin
I am not sure what you mean about ABT not getting much love. We are also going to try and keep this kind of driver analysis up to date and perhaps make it a regular feature here at ABT as I am always benching.
When the new WHQL GeForce drivers come out, I intend to put GTX 480 against HD 5870 and Catalyst 10-6 to see what changes may have taken place since the GTX 480 was first released. In the meantime, I am working on a PowerColor HD 5870 PCS+ review where it is overclocked as far as it can go and we will try to find diminishing returns and the performance limits of its architecture. Stay tuned. There are a lot of good articles and reviews coming from us very soon!
Edwin, we always strive to put up stuff that’s different to the standard fare.
Thanks for the detailed tests!
Could you ad some source engine based game like team fortress 2 or left 4 dead(2) please?
You’re welcome, Thad.
We do feature Source Engine’s original Left4Dead. Perhaps later on we can add L4D 2.
Thanks for the detailed results, very easy and straightforward to understand without having to go through endless pages of graphs. added site to my favourites