AMD Catalyst 12.11 Performance Analysis

[erocker]

My 2D clocks are are stuck in this mode now.

 

[cadaveca]

My 2D clocks are are stuck in this mode now.

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/12/10/22/g9f.png

Install error, I'd say, no problems like that here, both single and multi-GPU, 300 MHz GPU, 150 MHz memory no problem.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

i only got a slight improvement 1-2% negligable,, tut they work well though, they seem to have 5xxx series as good as they are getting, they are working very well still

mine are at 157 Erocker but no glitching, odd ,good but odd ,theres time yet for your trick

 

[TheMailMan78]

My 2D clocks are are stuck in this mode now.

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/12/10/22/g9f.png

Damn looks like a messed up install. Try this out...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52502

 

[MxPhenom 216]

Holy cow, thats amazing if the gains that large with AA. BF3 the killer for AMD cards has bee nthe AA. Thats a massive performance leap, makes the 680 look bad, very shocked, sad that my rig is down now and won't be able to try them

They are the same performance even more now. I dont see how it makes the 680 look bad. Must make the 7970 look bad then too. Like i said, pick your color, and your getting same card with different drivers.

Im wondering what they did to push this amount of performance out of the cards. When Nvidia did this with the GTX2xx series they lowered the image quality in a lot of the games to get the extra performance.

 

[erocker]

Damn looks like a messed up install. Try this out...

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52502

Oh you.

I've reinstalled several times now. Using my method and using ATiMan Uninstaller. It may be the bios I'm using which has unlocked clocks.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/raid_windows.aspx


there is also an updated chipset and raid driver available

 

[the54thvoid]

My 2D clocks are are stuck in this mode now.

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/12/10/22/g9f.png

I'm getting the same clocks with my primary 7970. 2nd card is still using zero core though.

EDIT:

Just tried a few things and it does seem to be better (even with crossfire). It's also fixed my Afterburner bug where my 2nd gpu temps/clocks wouldn't show. Now it does

Can confirm, BF3 is faster

But yeah, primary card doesn't down clock as much but it doesn't exactly suck juice at 0-1% load so no biggie.

 

[erocker]

Tried the stock and GHz bios and get the same high 2D clocks. Only happens with these drivers. When I switch back to 12.9 beta, clocks become 300/150 in 2D mode. I don't know what I'm missing.

@cadaveca, did you just install over your previous drivers?

@ 54thvoid, are you running reference card(s)?

**I found others having similar issues: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18452871&page=10

Seems to be happening to 7970 reference card users. Apparently AMD is aware of it. I'll take the power usage in trade for performance though for now.

 

[BigMack70]

Great driver for gaming... this is the first driver where The Witcher 2 has worked 100% fine with ubersampling enabled for me - no crashes + 60fps performance!

The bad news? It seems unstable for bitcoin mining. When I'm mining, I get weird artifacting on the screen regardless of my clock and voltage settings. The problem does not exist in any games so far, and obviously not many people mine bitcoins, so not a huge deal.

It also nearly bumped my 3dmark11 X score over 7000! I could probably get my clocks up enough to score X7000 and survive for a single run, but at 1195/1800 (which is my max 100% stable clock), I'm getting around X6850-X6900.

 

[eidairaman1]

Great driver for gaming... this is the first driver where The Witcher 2 has worked 100% fine with ubersampling enabled for me - no crashes + 60fps performance!

The bad news? It seems unstable for bitcoin mining. When I'm mining, I get weird artifacting on the screen regardless of my clock and voltage settings. The problem does not exist in any games so far, and obviously not many people mine bitcoins, so not a huge deal.

It also nearly bumped my 3dmark11 X score over 7000! I could probably get my clocks up enough to score X7000 and survive for a single run, but at 1195/1800 (which is my max 100% stable clock), I'm getting around X6850-X6900.

ya that stuff right there is not a normal task. Id say try folding/crunching

 

[Nordic]

Interesting about bitcoin mining doing that. What miner do you use? Btc mining is all single precision math. Try lowering your aggression.

 

[manofthem]

I'm going to try the 12.11 and see if they affect my reference 7970 the same way as erocker. I'll post back shortly.

My 2D clocks are are stuck in this mode now.

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/12/10/22/g9f.png

12.11
My clocks are also stuck at 500/1375

And apparently it's only my main card, as my second card doesn't have the issue of high clocks, but it doesn't seem to be powering off like it used to.

Went ahead and downloaded and installed 12.10 also, no change ? I swear 12.8 didn't have this issue
12.10

 

[Novulux]

My 3DMark11 performance preset graphics score increased 1.4k on my HD 7870. Time to try some games.

 

[t_ski]

I've been running the 12.4's for a while, and my clocks are already stuck at 500/1375. Might as well try these out for the extra boost

EDIT: Ok, ran the installer package and did an uninstall, rebooted, then ran the package again and installed them. Had to go back in and configure my Eyefinity setup (no big deal - 30 seconds maybe), then had to reboot again for cards #2 and #3 to be recognized in Afterburner. Right now I am sitting idle at the desktop and GPU #1 is at 500/1375, but GPU #2 & #3 are sitting at 0/0. Nice

 

[Mussels]

12.10 is working as expected for me on 5K crossfire, no bugs with idle clocks.

 

[Clubber_Lang]

Well.....I'm glad I have you guys here that actually know what you're doing to test this stuff. If I had my new card I wouldn't know what the hell was going on. Hopefully be able to pick up a new 7970 within the next couple weeks!!

 

[BigMack70]

Interesting about bitcoin mining doing that. What miner do you use? Btc mining is all single precision math. Try lowering your aggression.

Using GUIMiner because I don't really know what I'm doing (don't know what aggression is or how to lower it) and the other miners seemed more complex, and I just started leaving my rig on at night to mine while I sleep to make some free $$ to pay for new tech toys (I don't pay for electricity).

It doesn't seem to do anything harmful... the artifacts seem to have to do with aero glass in win7 as it seems to have problems drawing the borders of windows - they will become sporadically "blocky" until you move the window and make it re-draw.

I've had it up and running for a few hours now and no crashes, so it's not unstable... just some sort of weird bug.

 

[Nordic]

Using GUIMiner because I don't really know what I'm doing (don't know what aggression is or how to lower it) and the other miners seemed more complex, and I just started leaving my rig on at night to mine while I sleep to make some free $$ to pay for new tech toys (I don't pay for electricity).

It doesn't seem to do anything harmful... the artifacts seem to have to do with aero glass in win7 as it seems to have problems drawing the borders of windows - they will become sporadically "blocky" until you move the window and make it re-draw.

I've had it up and running for a few hours now and no crashes, so it's not unstable... just some sort of weird bug.

Ah, guiminer. Guiminer uses poclbm. It does not have aggression.
You are useing this on a 7970 right. You should try these settings in the extra flags section.

-f 60

-f refers mostly to how the system will prioritize graphical load. -f 60 will put it last. -f 0 will put it before everything. It may reduce your hash rate by 10mhz but your system will run better hopefully.

-w 256

-w refers to work size. This should increase your hashrate.

I would suggest cgminer. It is the best out there right now. It will give you the best hash rate and it is actually really easy to use.

 

[manofthem]

12.10 is working as expected for me on 5K crossfire, no bugs with idle clocks.

12.10 has normal idle clocks? I tried it w/ 79xx but it did the same high 2d clocks 500/1375. Back on 12.8 for the time being and everything looks good

 

[Widjaja]

Both the 12.10 and 12.11 BETA are giving me flickering artifacts in Skyrim with my 7870
I can confirm the 12.11 BETA has resolved the 7870 core clock reporting 450Mhz randomly.
But still the artifacts.

Revert back to 12.8 and no artifacts.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Well, I tested 12.10 and 12.11, but there wasn't much to test. The drivers are junk.

3D clocks never engage no matter what you do. Any attempt at applying an OC results in crazy distortion and sometimes the image bouncing up and down (is that the flickering ppl are talking about) with lines running through it.

JFC. Get your shit together, AMD. I expect bugs in a beta but not an official release.

 

[cadaveca]

I have no issues to report with my dual 7950's and the 12.11 Beta. Secondary card will go full shutdown when system is truly idle..etc...etc...etc..

Battlefield 3 Visual quality has been adjusted somehow...I have to play a few rounds more before I can say much on that...I can say that I have my very own driver un-install method, dunno if that's what got things worknig for me or not, however.

 

[Widjaja]

Well, I tested 12.10 and 12.11, but there wasn't much to test. The drivers are junk.

3D clocks never engage no matter what you do. Any attempt at applying an OC results in crazy distortion and sometimes the image bouncing up and down (is that the flickering ppl are talking about) with lines running through it.

JFC. Get your shit together, AMD. I expect bugs in a beta but not an official release.

My HD7870 is factory OC'd to a whopping 1010Mhz core clock!
Fastest 7870 Ghz edition factory stock!

Yet I am getting sporadic flickers and crazy distortion in Skyrim which appears for a split second, but if I walk backwards to the same spot, those flickery triangles are there.

No 3D clock issues wiht the 7870 though besides the usual random core clock drop to 450Mhz noted in GPU-Z which does not appear to affect game play on current WHQL.

Back to 12.8 for me....not that I really needed the fps boost.

I can say that I have my very own driver un-install method, dunno if that's what got things worknig for me or not, however.

I just go to control panel, right click the AMD install manager, select change and uninstall all AMD software.
Theoretically it should be enough.

 

[Assimilator]

Has ATI fixed the idle clocks for multi-monitor setups yet?