AMD recently released a new set of Catalyst graphics card drivers with Catalyst 13.1. The new drivers are WHQL (Microsoft certified) and incorporate all of the fixes contained in the 12.11 beta 11 drivers. The Radeon HD 7000 series will see the majority of the performance and stability tweaks with 13.1. Additionally, the Catalyst 13.1 suite includes a new 3D settings interface in Catalyst Control Center that allows per-application profile management. The Linux version of the Catalyst 13.1 drivers now officially support Ubuntu 12.10 as well.
Some of the notable performance tweaks for the HD 7000 series include:
- CrossFire scaling performance in Call of Duty: Black Ops II improvements.
- Up to a 25% increase in Far Cry 3 when using 8X MSAA.
- An 8% performance increase in Sleeping Dogs and StarCraft II.
- A 5% improvement in Max Payne 3.
Beyond the performance increases, AMD has fixes several bugs with the latest drivers. Some of the noteworthy fixes include:
- Fixed a system hang on X58 and X79 chipset-based systems using HD 7000-series GPUs.
- Fixed an intermittent hang with HD 7000-series GPUs in CrossFireX and Eyefinity configurations.
- Resolved a system hang in Dishonored on 5000 and 6000 series graphics cards.
- Resolved a video issue with WMP Classic Home Cinema.
- Added Super Sample Anti-Aliasing support in the OpenGL driver.
AMD has also released a new standalone un-installation utility that will reportedly clean your system of AMD graphics card drivers to make way for newer versions. That utility can be downloaded here.
If you have a Radeon HD 7000-series card, it would be worth it to update your drivers ASAP. You can download the Catalyst 13.1 drivers on the AMD website.
You can find a full list of the performance tweaks and bug fixes in the Catalyst 13.1 release notes.
And still years behind
And still years behind Nvidia! LOLs At least that is what we are expecting the new fangled “FPS is only half the battle” benchmark. We will be toying with out APU’s and seeing if the 13’s will be any better than the 12’s. Not holding our breath.
WOW Gotta love idiotic
WOW Gotta love idiotic fanboys did you just say years behind Nvidia do you even look at benchmarks i have a HD 7970 and previously owned a GTX 580 and benchmarks clearly state that the HD 7970 is the fastest single gpu graphics card on the planet wtf are you on about
Finally! Maybe now the their
Finally! Maybe now the their drivers wont bork my xorg.conf. there 12.xx drivers would not display properly on my apu crossfired laptop.
Glad to find out that this
Glad to find out that this reduced the performance of my 6970s.
Thanks AMD!
well Fan Boy or not I Have
well Fan Boy or not I Have owned Tons of AMD Products and still love alot of what they have to offer for there price point. How Ever I Have Recently RMA’ed 2 XFX 7970 as i was suffering from Crash after Crash Running there 12.10 12.11 beta drivers.The Cards its self benchmarks Fine but Overall with the drivers avalible at the time were crap.
I have since Downgraded to a Asus GTX 660 OC 1020Mhz 2 GB GDDR5 GPU and with the money I Now Saved Bought a 3 TB HD
Sadly With the drivers avalible at the time for the 7970 my 660 Performed quite well for price point and runs most of the games on par with the exeption of Hitman absolution and FC3. FC3 Still looks great i have it running on high and well once i pick up another GTX 660 will perform quite well.