Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz (190MHz x 20)
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P (Supplied by Noctua)
Motherboard(s): GIGABYTE EX58-UD5 (Supplied by GIGABYTE)
Memory: 3 X 2GB OCZ Technology PC-12800 DDR-3 8-8-8-24 (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)
Hard Disk(s): Western Digital 300GB Velicorapter (Supplied by Western Digital)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 64-Bit
Drivers: ATI Catalyst 9.10, ATI Catalyst 9.9 and ATI Catalyst 8.14.10.0700 Beta

The biggest changes the driver brings with it is support for the HD 5800 series. Something worth noting, however, is that the 9.10s don't support the 5700s which we saw released recently.

This is a bit of a disappointment as the AMD driver team is normally on its game. If you find yourself with a HD 5700 series card you're going to have to stick to the one that hopefully came in the bundle.

When it comes to performance there aren't any promises for any model. With that said, we'll be testing the two brand new HD 5800 cards today; those will be compared to the original driver that came with our samples which seems to be a 9.10 beta. We'll also be including the HD 4890 to see if there are any changes against last month's 9.9 drivers. As of next month, we'll be dropping this model and replacing it with the HD 5770.

3DMark Vantage

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.1
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmarkvantage/
Buy It Here

3DMark Vantage is the new industry standard PC gaming performance benchmark from Futuremark, newly designed for Windows Vista and DirectX10. It includes two new graphics tests, two new CPU tests, several new feature tests, and support for the latest hardware.

3DMark Vantage is based on a completely new rendering engine, developed specifically to take full advantage of DirectX10, the new graphics API from Microsoft.

HD 5870: In both presets there seems to be a slight drop in performance when compared to our original beta driver.

HD 5850: In both presets there seems to be a slight drop in performance when compared to our original beta driver.

HD 4890: In our P preset there seems to be a small drop not unlike our HD 5800 card saw. The X one is slightly up, though.