The latest Catalyst driver suite, version 8.7, is available for download from the AMD website. In addition to a number of big fixes for both Windows XP and Vista, these drivers add official support for the recently release Radeon HD series of graphics cards and a handful of performance enhancements for single-card and CrossFire configurations. Here's a snip from the release notes...
Performance Improvements: The following performance gains are noticed with this release of Catalyst.
- 3DMark Vantage: Performance increases of up to 20% is noticed in the Performance Preset on single card configured systems when using ATI Radeon HD 36xx or ATI Radeon HD 34xx products
- Company of Heroes DX10: Performance increases of 3% to 12% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx product
- Lost Planet DX10: Performance increases of 4% to 15% is noticed in specific maps on single card configured systems when using either an ATI Radeon HD 48xx, ATI Radeon HD 38xx, or an ATI Radeon HD 36xx product
- Call Of Duty 4 DX9: Performance increases of up to 4% in specific maps is noticed on single card configured systems when using an ATI Radeon HD 48xx product
- Lost Planet DX9: CrossFire scaling improves up to 1.7x and performance increases up to 80% across all Radeon products when AA and AF is enabled
The drivers are available for Windows XP, Vista, and Linux. If you try them out and have good or bad news to report, be sure to let us know in the comments section.
Marco Chiappetta
Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com
