AMD Catalyst 12.6 BETA June 4 Benchmark

Second 8.98 AMD Catalyst driver was leaked the other day, this one was built almost two weeks after the first one. Unfortunately, the first 8.98 driver performed poorly and DiRT 3 became almost unplayable under DirectX 11. These 8.98 drivers seem to fix issues with HD7000 cards, especially CFX related. But the feelings are mixed, some say that 8.98 fixed a lot of issues for their cards (mostly HD7000 owners) and other say that 8.97 April 18 is still the best driver for them (mostly HD5k-6k owners). Its obvious (and normal) that AMD will focus on their newest GPUs. As long as they don’t mess things up for the other cards (25% less FPS in DiRT 3 DX11) this is fine by me, just hope they will throw a few bones our way (non HD7000 owners) from time to time.

But anyways, let’s see if this build is better than the previous one. I included the results for the prior 8.98 driver just to see how close these two drivers are in terms of performance. As always, the results for the latest WHQL and the best performing driver are included.

Because of AMD’s new Catalyst driver release calendar this package would be called: AMD Catalyst 12.6b Hotfix.

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