HD 7850-ATI drivers, how are they?

[doomdesire86]

Currently the only current gen 250$ GPU on the market is the 7850, and it fits my budget perfectly, but based on the Tom's Hardware reviews, there seems to be massive problems with AMD drivers. I was wondering if the newer updated drivers work. For the most part I'll be playing games such like BF3, Arma, and any new games coming out soon.

Will I face any problems with ATI drivers?

 

[rwayne]

I can't comment on the HD7850 drivers as I do not own one but I have owned ATI / AMD cards for the last 6 years. Prior to that I used Nvidia cards for the previous 5 years.

I love AMD drivers. I have had practically no problems. I have only had 2 issues (one which I did not realize was an issue) a random micro-stutter in the COD Black Ops load screen which was fixed the following month. The other was an emulation issue which occurred in Windows Live programs which was caused by the activation of morphological anti-aliasing. The issue was quickly resolved by turning it off.

Most of the negative references I see are attached to the name 'ATI' and not AMD. I think several years ago there probably was legit issues with ATI drivers. That is why the name 'ATI' keeps being brought into the picture although there have been no 'ATI' branded video cards for a long time now.

I think AMD has improved the drivers and graphics console greatly over the past few years. I have really had an enjoyable experience using their products. They got some great vendors also. XFX, Sapphire, HIS. They offer some really nice alternatives to reference cooling.

If I was in the market today I would definitely spring for an HD7850.

 

[dudewitbow]

Hit or miss, I haven't had any driver problems with my Sapphire 7850, other people have reported problems on theirs. It really depends sometimes.

 

[doomdesire86]

I see...

Anyone else have something to contribute? Just wanna see what im getting into

 

[rwayne]

I think I read the link you were referring too. They said the 7870 was basically great but surprisingly the 7850 had all sorts of issues. I think that may had just been the card they tested with. They are both basically the same chip.

I don't see other reviews from other sites reporting problems with the 7850.

Right now the 7850 is considered one of the best bang for the buck cards out there. If they had the problems or even half of the problems mentioned in that tom's article I don't think the card would retain the really good reputation that it has.

Can you link the article? See if it lists the name of the catalyst driver version used in the test bed then do a google search for that driver and see if you get any hits.

I can understand being cautious before making a large purchase but I think you have nothing to worry about.