2012 AMD Video Card Driver Performance Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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2012 AMD Video Card Driver Performance Review - We continuing our look at driver performance improvements over time by evaluating AMD’s 2012 driver performances on both the AMD Radeon HD 7970 and HD 7950 video cards. We will see how drivers from the beginning of the year to the end of year have impacted real world gameplay performance .
 
Cool review. It definitely was a tale of two halves this year for AMD's driver team.

Would have been neat to see crossfire included in this review, since some of the biggest problems and fixes/improvements have been in that realm. I had a pretty lousy experience with 7970 Crossfire until July with the 12.7 beta release, and from there on out my experience has been almost entirely superb.
 
If you aren't going to have a new driver each month, it's going to cause confusion, with lots of gaps, between major driver releases. We would suggest going to a numbering system. In this way, it doesn't matter what month, or when in the month, the driver is released. You simply attach a version number to it.
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How is 123.45 less confusing than 2013.02? When you check to see if you have the latest release - and you ALWAYs have to do that - the biggest number is better with both schemes.
 
HammerSandwich said:
How is 123.45 less confusing than 2013.02? When you check to see if you have the latest release - and you ALWAYs have to do that - the biggest number is better with both schemes.
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Because you always know that a bigger number, = the latest, or more recent driver.

Current CCC does not tell you which beta you have installed. If you install 13.2 Beta 2, you have to remember what you have installed. When 13.2 Beta 5 comes out, you have to determine what you had, and if its better. I personally think that having multiple beta's of the same "version" is incredibly confusing, you have to keep up with 10 beta's of the same version, it gets a bit muddled.

If drivers were numbered, beta's and whql's alike, then its easier. Driver Beta 100.00, Beta 100.10, Beta 100.20, WHQL 110.00. It's just much easier to track and know what you have installed versus what is available. If you have 100.20 installed, but you see 100.30 on the website, you know for certain you don't have the latest driver. You know what you have, and you know what you need.

I'm able to keep track of NVIDIA driver versions much easier, than I am AMD, relatively speaking.

Our other video card editors will agree with me, you guy's don't know how much we try to keep up with drivers, and make sure the latest is used, and compare what we've used in the past compared to what is new now and what is new about them, and there is a heavy lean toward NVIDIA drivers being easier to keep up with. We just have an easier time tracking those versions compared to the multiple Beta's for one driver version number, on AMD's side. Also, often, when AMD updates to a new Beta version, they remove the previous Beta versions. Also, they tend to release multiple drivers at a time, like they'd release Cat 13.1 WHQL, but at the same time also release a Cat 13.2 Beta, and then from there keep releasing Beta's on 13.2 until 13.2 WHQL, then it starts all over again. I can imagine it might be confusing for those that don't know much about how drivers work, and the numbering system under AMD. Plus, now that there are no steady monthly driver releases, it's kind of pointless to use that numbering system, IMO.
 
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In the Max Payne 3 page AMD 7950 1st chart it should probably read 2xMSAA.

I find the AMD driver numbering system easy to follow.
The problem is in CCC not showing which beta you have installed.
With the current numbering system and a Catalyst more Beta Version friendly it would be quite easy to understand what you have imo.
 
Random question - with the newest divers, would a 7970 GHz edition beat out 2x 6950s? It's pretty difficult finding reviews that should a comparison using the latest drivers. With the new gaming bundle, starting to feel an itch and I definitely want to get away from crossfire for a while.
 
My 7950 says THANK YOU to the [H] team. :)

Now I'm going to go make sure that I have 12.11...
 
Usually I am in full agreement with most reviews and can see the need to have an article such as this but I just can't see it here.

- Very negative opinion on driver revision numbering
- Absolutely no mention of the current drivers

How hard is it to really understand MMYY with the word BETA attached to the end of it and a following number for the beta version? It is a hell of a lot easier to understand than nvidia's labeling scheme.

I understand it was a year in review, but a simple conculsion paragraph and quick chart on performance with the latest beta or even WHQL would show the everything in a different light.

I'm just suprised there is nothing in the form of what other sites are writing about with frametimes, especially AMD's new found focus on these things and the upcoming memory rewrite.

None of this happened until after the new year. I am not too concerned with crossfire performance because god knows how long this took to write. I'm just a little perplexed on the choices here.

A conclusion with "Where AMD is going next year" or something ya know?
 
next-Jin said:
Usually I am in full agreement with most reviews and can see the need to have an article such as this but I just can't see it here.

- Very negative opinion on driver revision numbering
- Absolutely no mention of the current drivers

How hard is it to really understand MMYY with the word BETA attached to the end of it and a following number for the beta version? It is a hell of a lot easier to understand than nvidia's labeling scheme.

I understand it was a year in review, but a simple conculsion paragraph and quick chart on performance with the latest beta or even WHQL would show the everything in a different light.

I'm just suprised there is nothing in the form of what other sites are writing about with frametimes, especially AMD's new found focus on these things and the upcoming memory rewrite.

None of this happened until after the new year. I am not too concerned with crossfire performance because god knows how long this took to write. I'm just a little perplexed on the choices here.

A conclusion with "Where AMD is going next year" or something ya know?
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This was a look at 2012, not 2013. In 2014, when we look back at 2013, it will be interesting to see how those changes in the drives affect things. It will be very telling, when we look back at 2013 this may be the year microstuttering, is solved. I look forward to that.

We will be doing some articles on the stuttering in the coming months. I'm in contact with AMD about new Beta drivers with these improvements you speak of. We will make specific articles about that, when we get them and are able to test it.
 
teclado said:
My 7950 says THANK YOU to the [H] team. :)

Now I'm going to go make sure that I have 12.11...
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12.11....? Get the 13.2 beta 5's hehe...

As to AMD's method of naming their drivers, I don't have a problem with keeping track of what I'm running, I just don't delete the version I have installed. Just looking at the exe let's me know where I'm at. Doesn't seem that hard to me.

That said, AMD should put the driver revision in the CCC. Moving to a numbering system like what Nvidia is doing? meh... take it or leave it. But I agree it probably would make sense now that the monthly releases are history.
 
Ok guys if you were buying multi-gpu setup right now would it be 7970ghz edition crossfire or 670@1200mhz sli???

Many times i read on hardocp that fps is not everything in multi-gpu... that microstuttering is more common in crossfire solution, is it still the issue with the newest drivers?
 
AMD makes a hell of a card but once again drivers are lacking and or at least behind . No sale , I'm sticking with green again and I say that out of extreme bordom but I've been down that road of disaster with AMD drivers before and there is no way I'm ever going back unless they clearly put the drivers above everything else .
 
Great review!!! Just shows how driver optimization is really important for the best perfomance :)
 
HD 7950 had a 30-60% increase in performance, that's crazy. It took a while to hone in on the new architecture but it's nice they did being GPUs appear to be pretty stale for quite a few of the upcoming months.
 
geez... reading this makes me want to get a 7950 instead of a 7870 LE.... ugh...... must resist...
 
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