AMD's Radeon HD 5870: Before And After A Year Of Driver Updates

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By Andrew Ku
published

Are you dutiful about keeping your drivers up-to-date? AMD does a pretty fantastic job about maintaining a monthly release schedule, after all. Today we look at how much performance you can expect from an old card in new games using four driver packages.

Benchmark Results: World Of Warcarft: Cataclysm

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Header Cell - Column 0 1680x1050No AA/16x AF1680x10508x AA/ 16x AF1920x1080No AA/16x AF1920x10808x AA/ 16x AF2560x1600No AA/16x AF2560x16008x AA/ 16x AF
Percent Gainfrom 9.10 to 11.1-2.33%1.65%-3.92%3.77%9.39%20.58%

Besides Battlefield: Bad Company 2, this is the other benchmark that requires us to use Fraps. Since there is no scene in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm that is completely reproducible, this adds to the potential for variance. Even when we resort to flight points, we can't manage a 100% match like we can in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Different characters pop up on the screen at different times.

With that said, the trends we see can't be dismissed as isolated anomalies. In two-thirds of our benchmarks, Catalyst 10.3 introduces a performance reduction, which we might be inclined to attribute to the early status of the software in relation to our modern benchmark suite. In a couple of cases, we get back what was lost in 10.8. However, we only see a large back-to-back performance gain at 2560x1600, and once we turn on AA and AF, we see a very linear progression from driver to driver. If you like playing Cataclysm with maxed-out settings, there is a potential 20% performance gain in moving from Catalyst 9.10.

Andrew Ku
89 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dallaswits
    I run a 5850, have loved it, and always get the newest driver.
    Reply
  • sabot00
    Wow, someone is really pissy.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    More like someone has been really moderated ;-)
    Reply
  • Assmar
    hahahyoursowrong"The moral of the story: be sure your graphics card drivers are always up to date."I'd love to cept I get a blue screen every time and can't even get to windows going from 10.4 to the newest.Uninstall all drivers before installing new ones.
    Reply
  • opmopadop
    If that guy who created/posted his problem 5 times spent that much effort understanding why his rig BSOD'd when he used the latest set, he might have resolved his problem by now.
    Reply
  • slyphnier
    ever since 10.11 ... many user got "100% GPU usage" and "top right mouse lag" issue
    11.4 early preview still having the issue
    from what i know the issue above mostly effect radeon 5000series (5850 and 5970)
    for people having those issue forced to stick with 10.10e

    still no news when amd will fix those issue, as from what i heard amd can't replicate the issue on their lab, thus can't fix it
    Reply
  • Assmar
    I know you're terribly busy, but any way we can get the CF comparisons from then and now, even if it isn't as thorough?
    Reply
  • Zeh
    I'm eager for a new driver release. I've switched my old 4670 ddr2 for a 6850. In some games I'm having a few VSync problems, and the overall performance during video playback has decreased and I have no idea why, quality did not change, or at least I didn't see any changes.

    This 6850 just doesn't feel as rock solid as the good old 4670, which never gave me any trouble. Here's hoping new drivers will solve my issues. Else, I might even switch to a pair of GeForces instead of getting another 6850 for crossfire.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    assmarI know you're terribly busy, but any way we can get the CF comparisons from then and now, even if it isn't as thorough?
    Excellent story idea, assmar.
    Reply
  • howiejcee
    Andrew Ku forgot to mention that ATI's lousy drivers have and for the foreseeable future will always have problems.

    Not to say that Nvidia occasionally has driver issues, but at least they fix the problems. Only 10.9 and a couple versions before that don't give my 5870 any major problems.
    Reply