GPU Driver: ATI's or MSI's?

[Guest]

I've always wondered what the difference was with the drivers from ATI/NVidia and the ones from the factory producers. Which ones do you guys use? Any idea what the advantages for either one would be?

I've always felt like the large chip producers are going to be able to put out a better driver so I've always tended to use those.

I have a new HD 5850 from MSI on the way and was wondering which driver I should use when I get it. MSI has a nice program that allows you to control the voltage on the GPU so hopefully that will still work if I decide to use ATI's driver.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127500

Pretty good deal on the card BTW, very cheap at $190 and you get a free $15 NewEgg gift card if you order it before the 8th

 

[bystander]

You generally get the best results from ATI's websites. You can usually use the utilities from the manufactures regardless of which drivers you use. I use ATI drivers with MSA Afterburner, for example. Although I do not believe I have voltage control, but from what I read, Afterburner doesn't control voltage with the new cards regardless.

 

[jyjjy]

You should always use the latest drivers directly from AMD;
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx
Afterburner will still work just fine.

 

[jyjjy]

Although I do not believe I have voltage control, but from what I read, Afterburner doesn't control voltage with the new cards regardless.

Where did you read that?

 

[bystander]

Where did you read that?

While following threads of people who use the new 6900 MSI cards with afterburner. The new 6900 cards have a new feature built into the cards to regulate voltage and power. I assume it's related to that. Although ASUS's software lets you regulate the power, but that version requires ASUS drivers to work.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the responses, I was planning on getting the ATI drivers but just wanted to see if anyone had a compelling reason for me not to.

According to the info from MSI I should be able to control the voltage levels, hopefully it's not a lie or broken somehow. I know I read it right though. If that fails, doesn't AMD/ATI have OCing as part of their graphics suite software? If all else fails I'll just OC at the driver level with RivaTuner

 

[bystander]

As of now, the 6900 cards still don't support voltage control. I keep hearing it will eventually.

The 6800 do however.

 

[randomizer]

I've always wondered what the difference was with the drivers from ATI/NVidia and the ones from the factory producers.

The splash screen that comes with the installer.

 

[jyjjy]

While following threads of people who use the new 6900 MSI cards with afterburner. The new 6900 cards have a new feature built into the cards to regulate voltage and power. I assume it's related to that. Although ASUS's software lets you regulate the power, but that version requires ASUS drivers to work.

Yes, the HD6900 cards use a new type of voltage regulator. The next update of Afterburner will likely add support for it. The Asus software probably requires a card with an Asus BIOS rather than specific drivers.

 

[jyjjy]

According to the info from MSI I should be able to control the voltage levels, hopefully it's not a lie or broken somehow. I know I read it right though. If that fails, doesn't AMD/ATI have OCing as part of their graphics suite software? If all else fails I'll just OC at the driver level with RivaTuner

Afterburner is actually made by the same people as Rivatuner. It will work fine on an HD5850.

 

[bystander]

Yes, the HD6900 cards use a new type of voltage regulator. The next update of Afterburner will likely add support for it. The Asus software probably requires a card with an Asus BIOS rather than specific drivers.

It requires both an ASUS card and their drivers according to the software requirements at the download. I did flash the ASUS bios on my card, and it still did not recognize my card as an ASUS card, even though the subvender description in GPU-Z did read as ASUS. I'm not sure what it reads to determine if it's an ASUS card.

 

[jyjjy]

Hmm. Did you try using the Asus drivers then?

 

[bystander]

It wouldn't let me, it said it didn't recognize an ASUS card, even with the 6970 BIOS flash. I decided voltage control wasn't important and decided I'd wait until afterburner adds it.

 

[jyjjy]

Weird. I wouldn't think the brand is hard coded somewhere on the reference cards.
I guess the HD6970 BIOS increases the voltage a bit anyway. What kind of OC are you getting past the HD6970s 880mhz?

 

[bystander]

I have a 6950 flashed to a 6970. I was stable at 920 on the GPU clock. Given that this was a flashed 6950, I did not attempt to push the memory. I also backed the GPU clock to 910 just for a little extra security.