7970- Do I not get the most up-to-date drivers anymore?

almoststew1990 · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:43

I went to download the latest drivers for my card and noticed that the fury and 300 series is now separate to the 200, 7 and 6 series. Does this mean my drivers are not as 'good' as the ones for the latest cards?

it seems a bit strange as I thought my card was basically a 280x which is basically a 380x?

andybird123 · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:46

Yep, people have changed the ini file on the 300 drivers to get them working on the 200's for a performance boost, wouldn't surprise me if you could do the same

Meladath · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:52

380X doesn't exist, the 280X (and all tahiti cards) are not in the 300 series. Currently 15.7 is the newest driver for all AMD cards after the 4xxx series, so its worth getting regardless. The days of "nvidia has legacy support and AMD doesn't" are pretty much gone now.

In the future they may diverge, I imagine the 7970/280X will turn legacy before the other stuff, but it will be a long time before that happens, as you see the 5xxx still gets 15.7

shankly1985 · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:53

Always get the latest version 15.7 is for all graphics cards. It comes with new features and performance improvements like better draw calls etc

TheMorningStar · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:54

hmmm, this is somewhat disappointing of AMD. I'm guessing I'm in the same vote with my 7950, these modded drivers should work with my card I'm guessing?

What's the performance difference and any known instability?

Is there a bullet point guide to installing these?

shankly1985 · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:55

andybird123 said:
Yep, people have changed the ini file on the 300 drivers to get them working on the 200's for a performance boost, wouldn't surprise me if you could do the same

You must still be living under a rock.. That only happen with 300 release driver.. Now all GPUs are supported under 15.7

Meladath · 24 Jul 2015 at 11:57

TheMorningStar said:
hmmm, this is somewhat disappointing of AMD. I'm guessing I'm in the same vote with my 7950, these modded drivers should work with my card I'm guessing?

What's the performance difference and any known instability?

Is there a bullet point guide to installing these?

There are no modded drivers now.
It happened because the launch drivers for the Fury X and the 3xx series were newer than the drivers that worked with the 2xx series at the time, Hacking the driver made it work with the 2xx series and thus was faster, as the driver was better. 15.7 was released a week later as the official driver for all the cards and it has the same performance for all cards.

RavenXXX2 · 24 Jul 2015 at 12:00

So those on older cards can expect performance boosts when AMD has some new cards to sell.

shankly1985 · 24 Jul 2015 at 12:01

RavenXXX2 said:
So those on older cards can expect performance boosts when AMD has some new cards to sell.

Yes. All AMDs range got extra boost by the latest driver.

TheMorningStar · 24 Jul 2015 at 12:12

Meladath said:
There are no modded drivers now.
It happened because the launch drivers for the Fury X and the 3xx series were newer than the drivers that worked with the 2xx series at the time, Hacking the driver made it work with the 2xx series and thus was faster, as the driver was better. 15.7 was released a week later as the official driver for all the cards and it has the same performance for all cards.

Oh cool, never mind then ha

Lokken86 · 24 Jul 2015 at 12:35

My overclocked 7970 was performing the same or better than my mates gtx780 with the latest drivers on a lot of games.

nashathedog · 24 Jul 2015 at 15:55

shankly1985 said:
Yes. All AMDs range got extra boost by the latest driver.

Which is why AMD did not release the newer drivers for all cards to start with, They wanted to give the impression that performance from cards such as the 390 and 390x was higher than it really is when compared to the 290 and 290x.

They waited a few weeks for all the tech sites to finish there 300 series reviews and then they re-released the newer drivers to work with all the cards.

shankly1985 · 24 Jul 2015 at 16:33

nashathedog said:
Which is why AMD did not release the newer drivers for all cards to start with, They wanted to give the impression that performance from cards such as the 390 and 390x was higher than it really is when compared to the 290 and 290x.

They waited a few weeks for all the tech sites to finish there 300 series reviews and then they re-released the newer drivers to work with all the cards.

Believe what you want.

andybird123 · 24 Jul 2015 at 16:48

shankly1985 said:
Believe what you want.

Most people will believe the truth when it is that blindingly obvious, yes.

HardStyler3 · 24 Jul 2015 at 16:53

i have a hd 7950 and every driver gave me performance improvement 15.200 leaked driver which is 15.7 gave me big performance boost 2 months ago

almoststew1990 · 24 Jul 2015 at 17:48

It is strange that there are two links on the AMD page, one for the latest cards and one for the older cards, but its the same driver?

Anyway I'm on 15.7 but can't really tell any difference anyway.

shankly1985 · 24 Jul 2015 at 17:57

almoststew1990 said:
It is strange that there are two links on the AMD page, one for the latest cards and one for the older cards, but its the same driver?

Anyway I'm on 15.7 but can't really tell any difference anyway.

I only have one link, click on latest driver for Windows 8.1 or 10 and it will show 15.7

nashathedog · 24 Jul 2015 at 17:57

shankly1985 said:
Believe what you want.

Please, Explain it then.

I find it shocking that someone would even try to explain it any other way.

shankly1985 · 24 Jul 2015 at 18:03

nashathedog said:
Please, Explain it then.

I find it shocking that someone would even try to explain it any other way.

The 300 series driver was pushed out for support. It was this same driver the press had.. Mean while amd have sent off driver package 15.7 for whql it take couple weeks for this to pass Microsoft.

It was a timing matter nothing else. Amd needed to release something to support its latest GPUs and also was waiting on its latest package to pass Microsoft..

andybird123 · 24 Jul 2015 at 18:10

But the review drivers DO work on 290's, that isn't a timing issue, its a deliberate attempt to make the 290 look worse than the 390