VR-Zone

Yet another Catalyst driver released. This time it is the Cataylst 9.6 (8.62). Curious about the performance impact Catalyst 9.6 has on games, we ran 8 benchmarks (Some in-game benchmarks, some manual walkthrough) to find out. Although the benchmarks we ran are few compared to the scores of games out there, it should be able to provide a rough idea on how the driver is performing.

The fellowing eight benchmarks were used:

1. 3DMark Vantage
2. Crysis Warhead
3. Far Cry 2
4. Mirror's Edge
5. Left 4 Dead
6. Fallout 3
7. Deadspace
8. Call of Duty: World at War

We will be comparing the results with the past results of Catalyst 9.4 and Catalyst 9.5. Similar to past comparison articles, Fallout 3 and Deadspace were tested using a manual walkthrough in the game itself and recorded average FPS using FRAPS. COD5 was benched in game too but FPS was recorded during a fire fight instead of a standardised walkthrough. Benchmarks were run with a stock Core i7 965 processor, Foxconn Blood Rage, 3 x 2GB Adata rams and ATI 4890 1GB.

There wasn't any noticeable difference for 3DMark Vantage GPU score and Crysis Warhead when we compared Catalyst 9.4 and 9.5 with the latest 9.6. Fallout 3 and Call of Duty: World at War showed some drop in the FPS, particularly with the settings of 2560 x 1600, 4AA. The rest of the benchmarks, Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge, Left 4 Dead and Deadspace showed distinct improvement over Catalyst 9.4 and 9.5. With more to gain and less to lose, we recommend downloading and installing this new Catalyst 9.6 driver.