Catalyst 5.7 Drivers: Memory Limited Performance Improvements

X700 PRO 256 and X700 128

With the 256, we see essentially the same thing as the X800 XT. There are basically no performance gains with the new drivers, and we again see some small framerate losses.

The X700 128 is quite different, though. This card gives us an example of how the catalyst 5.7 drivers can, in some cases, dramatically improve performance. All of the games here show higher framerates with the new drivers, but a few numbers in particular stand out. Half-Life 2 with AA enabled at 1600x1200 goes from 30.4 on the 5.6 drivers, to 38.1 on 5.7. This is about a 25% increase and will be a noticeable improvement in game play. 1280X1024 also sees a marked improvement; 46.2 fps to 52.5, a 13.6% increase.

We also see that with this card, FarCry gets much better framerates, specifically without AA enabled. This shows how memory-intensive this game really is. At 1280x1024 without AA, FarCry gets about 11 fps higher with the 5.7 drivers, an impressive 32.6% gain, which would definitely be noticeable. This could easily mean that X700 128 users could step up the resolution in FarCry if they've been playing at lower ones. We also see some smaller performance gains with AA enabled, but they aren't as significant as the framerates remain a bit too low to play.

Unreal Tournament 2004 sees some decent framerate improvements as well, but only with AA enabled. At 1280x1024 with AA, the 8% increase makes these settings a little more playable. It's interesting to note that this was the only card we tested that saw a performance gain in UT. This is probably because it's a very CPU limited game.