AMD Catalyst 12.6 9.00 BETA June 12 Benchmark

We have our 3rd 12.6 Beta Catalyst package leaked and all this in just under three weeks. With AMD’s new Catalyst release calendar it seems we can expect a leaked driver each week, let’s see how long this trend sticks. The previous two 12.6 BETAs weren’t performing as good as previous drives but HD7000 owners saw significant improvements in terms of performance and bug fixes. It’s safe to say that at least these 12.6 Beta drivers are focused on HD7000 cards rather than on previous series.

Further more, the previous two 12.6 drivers were under-performing in DiRT 3 DirectX 11, about a 25% loss in FPS from almost all Catalyst drivers released since the game is available.

You may have noticed that this particular 12.6 Catalyst driver comes with a 9.00 main driver string. It was rumored that this 9.00 string would be a leap forward regarding new features and possibly, performance. We’ll have to wait for an official 9.00 release before we can see what we should expect on the future as SSAA for DX10+ games is still unsupported on GPUs prior to HD7000, a feature implemented for HD7000 cards several months ago.

Looking at the INF files, Windows Vista is not supported but there is support for switchable graphics and the next generation of Radeon GPUs codenames make their appearance through the supported cards list, the code names are inspired by our own Solar System: Venus, Mars, Sun and a rather large Swedish island named Oland. The 8xxx GPUs are closer than you think and are worked on as we speak…

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 v1.5 – 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