AMD Catalyst 11.12 8.921.5 29 December Benchmark

Yesterday, a new 11.12 AMD Catalyst that was built on 29 December surfaced, this driver is WHQL certified. Knowing that the best performing driver to date is a 11.12 one (11.12 Beta 18 Nov), I think it is a good opportunity to find the next best driver or even the best one yet.

Having seen that 8.95 branch drivers don’t bring big improvements, 11.12 8.921.5 29 December is up for testing. Right after the driver was available I did some “preliminary testing” in Battlefield 3 and was surprised to see how well it performed. For me, the best Battlefield 3 driver is 11.12 Beta 18 Nov but I think that that is about to change.

To test 11.12 8.921.5 29 Dec driver I will compare it to 11.12 WHQL and 11.12 Beta 18 Nov.

Tested Drivers and Information

Prior to installing a driver, a sweep was done in safe-mode using Phyxion Driver Sweeper.

Catalyst Version	2D Driver	3D Driver	OpenGL Driver	Driver Packaging Version	CCC Version	CCC
11.12 WHQL	8.01.01.1215	7.14.10.0879	6.14.10.11318	8.92-111109a-129966C-ATI	2011.1109.2212.39826	11.12
11.12 Beta 18 Nov	8.01.01.1221	7.14.10.0883	6.14.10.11384	8.93-111118a-128864E-ATI	2011.1118.1246.22742	N/A
11.12 8.921.5 29 December	8.01.01.1215	7.14.10.0885	6.14.10.11332	8.921.5-111229a-131232C-ATI	2011.1229.1025.18582	11.12

Tests and Settings

All 3 drivers are tested in 3 synthetic benchmarks and 6 games.

1. 3DMark06 1.02 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xAA – Anti Aliasing Quality = 0 – 4xAF – Shader Model 2.0 = Return to Proxycon + Firefly Forest – HDR/Shader Model 3.0 = Canyon Flight + Deep Freeze – 2 Runs.
2. Unigine – Heaven Benchmark 2.5 – 1680×1050 – High Shaders – Normal Tessellation(DirectX 11) – 2xAA – 4xAF – 2 Runs.
3. Cinebench 11.5 – 3 Runs.
4. Crysis 2 1.9 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool – Extreme Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xAA – Hi-Res Textures – Central Park – 3 Runs.
5. Metro 2033 using Update 1.2 Benchmark Tool – Very High Settings – 1680×1050 – 16xAF – No AA for DirectX 9 and 4xMSAA for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 – 3 Runs.
6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. – Call of Pripyat – 1680×1050 – Extreme Preset (DirectX 9) – Ultra Preset (DirectX 10 & 11)
7. DiRT 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xMSAA – 3 Runs
8. Battlefield 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xMSAA – 16xAF – Multiplayer @ Strike at Karkand (32p map, Large Conquest), main street: US Deployment -> B Flag – 3 Runs x 60s.
9. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.3.10 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xAA – 16xAF – Tested in the area East of Rorikstead – 3 Runs x 60s.

All synthetic benchmarks were ran 2 times except Cinebench (3 runs), all games were ran 3 times.

Test System Specifications

Table of Contents:

Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – 3DMark06, Unigine and Cinebench
Page 3 – Crysis 2, Metro 2033 and Call of Pripyat
Page 4 – Battlefield 3, DiRT 3 and Skyrim
Page 5 – Image Quality
Page 6 – Conclusion

Page 2 – 3DMark06, Unigine and Cinebench