AMD Announces Never Settle Catalyst 12.11 Driver Update

[btarunr]

AMD announced what it calls the "Never Settle" driver, a version of Catalyst Software suite, which could potentially tilt the price-performance ratios in its favor, against NVIDIA. The new drivers carry the canonical version number 12.11, and target AMD Radeon 7000 series GPUs, specifically those based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, such as HD 7750, HD 7770 GHz Ed., HD 7850, HD 7870 GHz Ed., HD 7950, HD 7950 BE, HD 7970, HD 7970 GHz Ed., and HD 7990; and mobile Radeon HD 7700M series, HD 7800M series, and HD 7900M series.

Catalyst 12.11 promises up to 15% performance improvements in the most modern games, such as Battlefield 3, DiRT Showdown, Sleeping Dogs, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, and more. With these improvements, AMD is claiming performance leads for all its top products, over NVIDIA's. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, for example, gains 20% performance advantage over GeForce GTX 680; HD 7970 gains 15% over GTX 670, and HD 7950 20% over GTX 660 Ti. The Never Settle driver, along with its complete release notes and download links will be updated a little later today.



DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst 12.11

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[btarunr]

An extensive review of this driver covering HD 7770, HD 7870, and HD 7970 GHz Ed., through our entire test suite, and against NVIDIA's lineup:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_Performance/

 

[Steevo]

Start threatening jobs and all of a sudden shit gets real..

 

[Widjaja]

Looks like a fair bit of 7870 lovin with these drivers.

 

[SIGSEGV]

Start threatening jobs and all of a sudden shit gets real..

so the first hypothesis is they should got serious threat before they really do their jobs professionally or their real/main problem is their shitty management/pr/boards or whatever it called.

glad, they're comeback and challenge of its rival with this major improvement through their radeon driver. great job amd!

 

[manofthem]

Just looked through W1zz's review of the new driver and its pretty beast! I don't think I've looked forward to a driver release like this ever

 

[cdawall]

Looks like a fair bit of 7870 lovin with these drivers.

No kidding if it werent for my waterblock would be really looking at a 7850/7870.

 

[Super XP]

Wow, talk about performance improvements. I am sure the HD 6900 may also benefit somewhat.

 

[SIGSEGV]

Wow, talk about performance improvements. I am sure the HD 6900 may also benefit somewhat.

target AMD Radeon 7000 series GPUs, specifically those based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture,

already benched on HD6970, from the graphs it shown no real benefit using this driver on the cayman.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Wow, talk about performance improvements. I am sure the HD 6900 may also benefit somewhat.

If you'd have read bta's second post, the answer would be somewhat clearer.

 

[Prima.Vera]

Can this be tested with 57xx cards also? People are still using those....

 

[Frick]

Can this be tested with 57xx cards also? People are still using those....

No point. 6xxx cards saw no improvements, no reason 5xxx cards would benefit.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Wait. I've read a lot of 7970 reviews and the scores are MUCH lower than these.
Have the newer drivers since launch been increasing performance this much?

I distinctly remember the 7970 losing by a hefty margin in some nvidia tuned games, yet here, it's clearly beating the 680, even without the new driver?
Games that had massive deficits are now pretty close.

Or are that many sites paid off nowadays (stupid question, really)?

I am ignoring everything except 2560x1600, though.

Looks like a fair bit of 7870 lovin with these drivers.

OCed that card is an incredible value.

 

[*TeMpEsT*]

7970

How about the 7970 none ghz card?

 

[Melvis]

Looks like a fair bit of 7870 lovin with these drivers.

And my next upgrade I have been looking at getting 2x7870's so now im REALLY excited

 

[BigMack70]

Wait. I've read a lot of 7970 reviews and the scores are MUCH lower than these.
Have the newer drivers since launch been increasing performance this much?

I distinctly remember the 7970 losing by a hefty margin in some nvidia tuned games, yet here, it's clearly beating the 680, even without the new driver?
Games that had massive deficits are now pretty close.

Or are that many sites paid off nowadays (stupid question, really)?

I am ignoring everything except 2560x1600, though.



OCed that card is an incredible value.

This is the second or third (depending on how you count it) driver to offer decent performance improvements for the 7970. And if you only care about 2560x1600, the 7970 has always been the superior choice there anyways (well, at least since its price dropped below the $500 mark).

Also, TPU is one of the only sites that actually keeps its results updated with current drivers as we go along - most sites just get their numbers at a card's launch and then plug those into all future reviews, leading to irrelevant info.

 

[nemesis.ie]

How about the 7970 non ghz card?

Just flash your card to GHz edition - the only minus is a bit more noise if you have the stock cooler and a bit more power consumption no doubt.

There is even an official AMD upgrade installer somewhere.

 

[UbErN00b]

Thanks for the free performance boost

 

[cdawall]

Wait. I've read a lot of 7970 reviews and the scores are MUCH lower than these.
Have the newer drivers since launch been increasing performance this much?

I distinctly remember the 7970 losing by a hefty margin in some nvidia tuned games, yet here, it's clearly beating the 680, even without the new driver?
Games that had massive deficits are now pretty close.

Or are that many sites paid off nowadays (stupid question, really)?

I am ignoring everything except 2560x1600, though.

Nope driver improvements are massive on all cards. My old ass GTX470's saw a huge performance jump between the shipped with drivers and current ones out there (15% or so partially due to SLi improvements)

 

[sergionography]

Wait. I've read a lot of 7970 reviews and the scores are MUCH lower than these.
Have the newer drivers since launch been increasing performance this much?

I distinctly remember the 7970 losing by a hefty margin in some nvidia tuned games, yet here, it's clearly beating the 680, even without the new driver?
Games that had massive deficits are now pretty close.

Or are that many sites paid off nowadays (stupid question, really)?

I am ignoring everything except 2560x1600, though.

youre probably confusing 7970 and 7970ghz edition
as you know amd when first released the 7970 they were very easy with clocks to guarantee better yield, and it turned out excellent from that part so they started selling ghz edition which easily beats the 680 in most games. last time you saw a review it probably was the vanilla 7970(which could easily be flashed to ghz edition, or oced)