Adapting to Parallelism: Catalyst 5.12 More Dual Core Friendly?
by Derek Wilson on December 4, 2005 10:45 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Performance Comparison: Cat 5.11 vs. Cat 5.12
The first thing we wanted to look at is the difference in scaling between driver versions. The following tables will show percent performance improvement of the beta 5.12 driver over that of the 5.11 driver. We will show performance improvements for both single and dual core configurations when moving to the beta driver.
While these numbers are, in fact, what users of single or dual core systems will experience when upgrading to newer drivers, there are other useful bits of information we can extract from them. We will be keeping an eye out for cases where the 5.12 driver performs worse than the 5.11 driver (these will be negative percentages in our tables). If, for instance, one tests shows the 5.12 driver doing worse in a single core platform and better in a dual core platform, we can discount some of the "value" of the dual core performance improvement as it's just making up for the performance hit on the single core side.
And as we can see from our Battlefield 2 test, The 5.11 driver performs as good as the 5.12 driver with no AA in 3 out of 6 tests. In the 8x6 case, the 5.11 driver handily bests the 5.12 beta. Enabling dual core allows the 5.12 driver to make up more than the ground it looses in single core performance, but the trade off just doesn't look good from this test.
And if you didn't think things could get worse, then just glance at the next table. The 5.12 driver tanks across the board on 4xAA performance under BF2. There isn't much more to say about this one.
Without AA, playing DoD:S, the 5.12 driver performs almost identically to the 5.11 driver on single core systems. Flipping the switch gives us an instant boost at 8x6 and 10x12, and even a little nudge in the right direction at 1600x1200.
Enabling 4xAA doesn't seem to change much. We see a little more benefit (percentage wise) when using 5.12 under dual core in 800x600 and 1600x1200, but the gain over 5.11 at 1024x768 drops a little. Either way, Day of Defeat Source seems to show that theres definitely a little benefit to be had by upgrading dual core systems to 5.12 from 5.11 drivers.
There are a few cases where the 5.12 driver improves performance in FarCry over the 5.11 even without the aide of dual core. Even though we see high percentage improvement with 5.12 under dual core, some of this could be general improvements to the way ATI handles the game.
Again, even with 4xAA FarCry benefits from the 5.12 drivers in 4 out of 6 tests (with both of those tests being much more GPU limited at 1600x1200).
There isn't much to say other than there isn't any improvement under Quake 4 when upgrading to the 5.12 drivers.
Which brings us to the test with the least change of all: Quake 4 with 4xAA.
Now let's take a look at performance improvement from a different perspective: improvement of a dual core system over a single core system.
The first thing we wanted to look at is the difference in scaling between driver versions. The following tables will show percent performance improvement of the beta 5.12 driver over that of the 5.11 driver. We will show performance improvements for both single and dual core configurations when moving to the beta driver.
While these numbers are, in fact, what users of single or dual core systems will experience when upgrading to newer drivers, there are other useful bits of information we can extract from them. We will be keeping an eye out for cases where the 5.12 driver performs worse than the 5.11 driver (these will be negative percentages in our tables). If, for instance, one tests shows the 5.12 driver doing worse in a single core platform and better in a dual core platform, we can discount some of the "value" of the dual core performance improvement as it's just making up for the performance hit on the single core side.
And as we can see from our Battlefield 2 test, The 5.11 driver performs as good as the 5.12 driver with no AA in 3 out of 6 tests. In the 8x6 case, the 5.11 driver handily bests the 5.12 beta. Enabling dual core allows the 5.12 driver to make up more than the ground it looses in single core performance, but the trade off just doesn't look good from this test.
| Battlefield 2 Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | -9.19 | -0.41 | 0.84 |
| Dual Core | 10.63 | 2.67 | -0.21 |
And if you didn't think things could get worse, then just glance at the next table. The 5.12 driver tanks across the board on 4xAA performance under BF2. There isn't much more to say about this one.
| Battlefield 2 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | -5.05 | -2.87 | -0.89 |
| Dual Core | -4.42 | -0.15 | -1.17 |
Without AA, playing DoD:S, the 5.12 driver performs almost identically to the 5.11 driver on single core systems. Flipping the switch gives us an instant boost at 8x6 and 10x12, and even a little nudge in the right direction at 1600x1200.
| Day of Defeat Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.19 | 0.19 | 0.66 |
| Dual Core | 6.31 | 6.34 | 1.97 |
Enabling 4xAA doesn't seem to change much. We see a little more benefit (percentage wise) when using 5.12 under dual core in 800x600 and 1600x1200, but the gain over 5.11 at 1024x768 drops a little. Either way, Day of Defeat Source seems to show that theres definitely a little benefit to be had by upgrading dual core systems to 5.12 from 5.11 drivers.
| Day of Defeat 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.37 | 0.19 | -0.27 |
| Dual Core | 6.69 | 4.31 | 2.66 |
There are a few cases where the 5.12 driver improves performance in FarCry over the 5.11 even without the aide of dual core. Even though we see high percentage improvement with 5.12 under dual core, some of this could be general improvements to the way ATI handles the game.
| FarCry Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.11 | 3 | -0.15 |
| Dual Core | 7.58 | 6.59 | 3.07 |
Again, even with 4xAA FarCry benefits from the 5.12 drivers in 4 out of 6 tests (with both of those tests being much more GPU limited at 1600x1200).
| FarCry 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 2.8 | 1.51 | -1.5 |
| Dual Core | 7.26 | 4.92 | -0.75 |
There isn't much to say other than there isn't any improvement under Quake 4 when upgrading to the 5.12 drivers.
| Quake 4 Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.27 | 0.36 | 0 |
| Dual Core | 0.27 | 0.36 | 0.31 |
Which brings us to the test with the least change of all: Quake 4 with 4xAA.
| Quake 4 4xAA Percent Increase (Cat 5.11 to 5.12) | |||
| 800x600 | 1024x768 | 1600x1200 | |
| Single Core | 0.21 | 0.17 | 0 |
| Dual Core | -0.21 | 0 | 0 |
Now let's take a look at performance improvement from a different perspective: improvement of a dual core system over a single core system.
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bldckstark - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
The gentlemen at Sanda National Labs don't see the parallelization "problem" the same as most of the computing community, and take exception to Mr. Amdahl's observation. They have shown that the possible multiple CPU parallelization improvement can exceed Amdahl's theoretical maximum. They state that as the number of processors increase, the size of the problem introduced to the system increases allowing speeds above those previously thought possible. Here's a link to the horribly boring article.http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/Publications/Gus/Amdahl...">Extremely Boring Paper With Too Much Math
Thank God we got that cleared up. Now maybe I'll be able to sleep tonight. 8>}
phusg - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
Interesting review, although disappointing performance.Just commenting to say don't forget about us SMPers! All the talk is about DC although not everyone with a dual CPU has it on the same die!!! I have a dual 760MPX board with a Radeon 9600 Pro and am hoping these driver improvement will really help me out.
Humble Magii - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
This article is silly....Seriously I have been a long time Anandtech reader and this past year I have noticed a huge dropoff in quality! What ever happened to Anand's in depth reviews of CPU's and their architecture? I don't see that type of enthusiasm or detail anymore here.
Are the specific reviewers for certain articles biased? It seems this is the case whoever reviews a certain product nowadays is biased on this site. The new ATI drivers are crap not to mention are in beta.....
Who the hell cares about a driver update I mean seriously unless it was a huge change for the better or worse why report it? I don't see reviews on forceware changes or an AT article on the dual core drivers for Nvidia? I suppose there are no pro nvidia people at AT or at least maybe Nvidia doesn't pony up to AT's reviewer here?
Who has problems with Nvidia's newer drivers? I sure as hell haven't and I have a 4800+ with two 512mb 7800 GTX's. I never had problems with Nvidia's drivers. Everyone has a different system and just because you yourself have a problem when the majority do not does not mean the product sucks. I have had issues with a bios update utility due to beta creative drivers for a sb audigy I mean please people I would have never of thought of that but most problems happen because of what other software you have installed.
Who cares about the ATI X1K series I don't and most of the world doesn't especially since they are replacing it supposedly coming soon next year so why bother? They aren't even cost effective performance solutions comapred to Nvidia. Oh I would love to try a crossfire solution too bad there are zero around so guess what the only performance in graphics today is Nvidia. That's what we are stuck with now.
I swear this site no matter the trash ATI puts out will post it and put it in a better light. The forums here are even worse with all the newbs and their uneducated hate and bias to other solutions.
The site is dying Anand please replace Derek Wilson and some other members and start taking control of the reviews again everyone sorely misses you :(.
heulenwolf - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
I have to agree on the point that since this driver update provides limited improvement, does it really warrant all the work Anandtech is putting into it. I own graphics cards from both ATI and NVIDIA and tend to go for midrange cards, so I can see some relevance to similar users who happen to own an x1000 series card. At the same time, as the previous poster points out, the advantage from a change of cards is far greater. So why so much testing that it has to be broken up into multiple reviews for a single driver providing such a small performance gain to users of a single line of cards who run at low resolutions and only play certain games? The benefit just seems small for so much work unless Anandtech can substantially tie it to a more general problem. My recommendation to the author, then, is to spend a little more time describing why you did all the testing - what it tells us - up front and tie it to a more general problem users may have.bob661 - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
So the WE, the user, can know that this driver only provides "small performance gains". How else would you know?bob661 - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
Damn it.....So THAT we...heulenwolf - Tuesday, December 6, 2005 - link
So, now we know. Where's the need for a follow up?hondaman - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
I think this review is quite interesting. There is a lot of chatter in the channels about how DC is useless for gaming. Its reviews like this that give us guys with dual core cpus hope that our cpus are good for more than just playing mp3's and encoding movies all at the same time.DrZoidberg - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
well after reading this article i still feel DC is only slightly useful when u are solely gaming. I mean why pay $200 extra for 2nd core to get 5% benefit at low res and when gaming at high res the benefit drops to like 2%. Like x2 3800+ and 3200+ are both 2ghz and about $200 difference and with these dual core drivers the 3800+ wins by 5%.Rather put the extra $200 to video card if main purpose of comp is to game and improvement will be like 30%+, like going from 6600gt to 7800gt. However multitasking is a totally different story. Encoding movie and gaming at same time, then dual core is very worth it.
porkster - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link
You may only get 5% as the games are not taking advantage of the new features.