AMD Catalyst 12.3 RC 8.95 31 January Benchmark

Last week was exhausting and I didn’t have the time necessary to do any benchmarks/tests, sorry for that.

You might notice some changes in the methodology, I removed two tests: Unigine Heaven and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but I added three more: 3DMark11, Unigine Sanctuary and Unigine Tropics. The reasons behind the changes are simple. Apparently Unigine Heaven has some incompatibilities with my motherboard and has a bad habit of crashing. I tested all hardware parts individually, they are fine. Furthermore Unigine Heaven minimum FPS is recorded at the very start of the test and that is not OK; minimum FPS was always very unstable.

On the other hand, S.T.A.L.K.E.R tests took very very long to complete (~2h) and I hate waiting that long for just one test to finish.

Based on your comments, I made a financial effort and got 3DMark11 Pro (didn’t pay the full price but it didn’t come cheap either). Unigine Sanctuary and Tropics might be a bit old but I haven’t encountered any issues with them; plus both feature all major APIs (DirectX 9-10-11 and OpenGL).

Hope you like the changes. Anyways, to test AMD Catalyst 12.3 RC 8.95 31 January I will compare it to 12.1 WHQL and 8.95 17 January.

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

All 3 drivers are tested in 5 synthetic benchmarks and 5 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. 3DMark11 1.0.3 Professional Edition - 1680×1050 – 2xMSAA – 4xAF – Graphic Tests 1-4 – 2 Runs.
• 3. Unigine – Sanctuary 2.3 – 1680×1050 – 2xAA – 4xAF – High Shaders – Ambient Occlusion = OFF – 2 Runs.
• 4. Unigine – Tropics 1.3 – 1680×1050 – 2xAA – 4xAF – High Shaders – Ambient Occlusion = ON – Reflections = ON – 2 Runs.
• 5. Cinebench x64 11.5 – 3 Runs.
• 6. Crysis 2 1.9 using Adrenaline Benchmark Tool – Extreme Preset – 1680×1050 – 4xAA – Hi-Res Textures – Central Park – 3 Runs.
• 7. 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.
• 8. DiRT 3 – Ultra Preset – 1680×1050 – 8xMSAA – 3 Runs
• 9. 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.
• 10. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim v1.4 – 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.

Table of Contents:

Page 1 – Introduction
Page 2 – 3DMark06,3DMark11,Cinebench and Unigine
Page 3 – Crysis 2, Metro2033, Battlefield 3, DiRT 3 and Skyrim
Page 4 – Conclusion

Page 2 – 3DMark06,3DMark11,Cinebench and Unigine