Author: HQH
Released: August 6, 2004
Updated: August 19, 2004
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So, what is the performance like when updating from Catalyst 4.7 to 4.8 to Catalyst 4.9 beta on a Radeon 9800 Pro? Blue line shows
Catalyst 4.7 in action, sky blue line shows Catalyst 4.8, red line showing Catalyst 4.9 beta. This is how it looks like when broken
down into separate computer configuration categories (FPS numbers and bigger graphs ported over from Excel
here):
The above plot shows Baseline default improvement (no overclocking, stock computer settings) from Catalyst 4.7 to either 4.8
or 4.9 beta drivers. Very nice performance increases just for driver improvements for updating from Catalyst 4.7. However, seeing
performance of Catalyst 4.9 beta driver improving over 4.8 is a big disappointment, not as big as it was going from Catalyst 4.7
to 4.8.
The above plot shows an Intel Pentium 4 2.4C overclocked to 3.0 GHz and changing RAM's timing improvement. CPU running
faster clock cycles (600 MHz more) yield a good performance boost. Again, it can also be seen that Catalyst 4.9 beta barely has any
gain over Catalyst 4.8 driver.
The above plot shows maximum overclocking (CPU and video card overclocked to the max with stock air cooling) with RAM timing
modified improvement. No big improvements to be drooling over with. This only shows two things: 1. I need to overclock the ATI
AIW Radeon 9800 Pro even more to try and get more performance out of it. 2. ATI AIW Radeon 9800 Pro is getting old for any decent
performance improvements in the long run of upgrades (e.g. coupling the video card with Intel P4 3 GHz or faster).
The above plot really shows what kind of performance improvement when updating from Catalyst 4.7 to 4.8 to 4.9 beta. The
performance numbers are taken exactly from the other plots, just putting it into a perspective that really shines how Catalyst 4.8
or 4.9 beta improves Doom 3 performance for my ATI AIW Radeon 9800 Pro. Let me describe what the above plot is demonstrating. As
mentioned at the beginning of this page, blue line represents Catalyst 4.7, sky blue line represents Catalyst 4.8, red line
represents Catalyst 4.9 beta. However, the green line represents Catalyst 4.7 with the configuration of my CPU running at 3.0 GHz
with RAM timing modified and video card not overclocked. And get a kick out of this: the red and sky blue lines represent the
configuration of my baseline default configuration, CPU running at 2.4 GHz, RAM timing set at default (slow), and video card not
overclocked. How about that! Basically, Catalyst 4.8 or 4.9 beta gave my default baseline (computer running everything stock, slow)
configuration a performance improvement virtually equal to that of a 3.0 GHz CPU speed bump with RAM timing modified to be a bit
quicker configuration running Catalyst 4.7 driver.
Catalyst 4.8 or 4.9 beta driver really makes the Radeon 9800 Pro work more efficiently and not make my CPU clock cycles go to
waste when compared to using Catalyst 4.7. I hope there's more OpenGL improvements from ATI for future Catalyst drivers to come. At
first, I didn't believe the performance increase (coming from Catalyst 4.7), but I double checked my computer configurations that
they're where they're suppose to be, and it turns out that the performance increase was legit.
Catalyst 4.9 beta over Catalyst 4.8 performance is another story to be discussed about.
Conclusion
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