13.11 Beta 6 Driver Performance - 7950 Crossfire & 1125/1600 - 1440P

[LtMatt]

Specs

i7 2700k@ 4.8ghz
8Gb DDR3 2133Mhz
2x7950 @925/1250
Windows 8
13.11 Beta 6 Drivers
Frame pacing enabled
1440P


Benchmarking Procedure & Settings

FOV (where applicable) 82
Ultra/Extreme Preset used from in game options.


Battlefield 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2b5b3vK-TY
Bioshock - Used in game benchmark
Crysis 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxrjqhSAnAo
Dirt Showdown - Used in game benchmark
Farcry 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW2gDhEMfyk
Hitman Absolution - Used in game benchmark
Metro 2033 - Used in game benchmark
Metro Last Light - Used in game benchmark
Tomb Raider - Used in game benchmark
Sleeping Dogs - Used in game benchmark
3DMark 11 - Firestrike
Unigine Valley - Extreme HD

Metro 2033#Metro LL - Used AAA, advanced Physx disabled. Everything else maxed out.

Spoiler

SCORE
12761 with AMD Radeon HD 7950(2x) and Intel Core i7-2700K Processor
Graphics Score 16502
Physics Score 12252
Combined Score 4838

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/1493117?

 

[LtMatt]

See my previous benchmarking thread here for a comparison on how this new 13.11 driver compares to the previous 13.10 driver. Below ive worked out the percentage different for minimum and average fps between the two driver sets.

13.11 Beta 6 vs 13.10 Beta


Battlefield 3
MIN: 8.8% faster
AVG: 3.7% faster


Bioshock
MIN: Not counted as MIN is bugged
AVG: 0%


Crysis 3
MIN: 6.6% faster
AVG: 3.9% faster


Dirt Showdown
MIN: 2.7% faster
AVG: 1.7% faster


Farcry 3
MIN: 2.5% faster
AVG: 4.9% faster


Hitman
MIN: 0%
AVG: -0.9% (margin of error)


Metro 2033
MIN: 76% increase
AVG: 4.3% faster


Metro Last Light
MIN: 2.2% faster
AVG: 6% faster


Sleeping Dogs
MIN: 3.4% faster
AVG: 2.7% faster


Tomb Raider
MIN: -2% slower
AVG: 0.9% faster (margin of error)


Firestrike - GPU Score Only
0.7% faster (margin of error)


Unigine Valley Score Only
-0.7% slower (margin of error)

 

[LtMatt]

Very nice, but are the drivers an improvement over the previous or not? I don't see anything to reference previous drivers, so hard to make a guess as to if they're good or not!

See my second post above which ive just finished editing. I've just worked out the performance differences vs 13.10 beta for every game on the minimum and average fps.

 

[LtMatt]

Ive got 7950 xfire going from the 13.11 beta 3 to 13.11 beta 6 my battlefield 3 performance has gone down so I've gone back to the beta 3's.

Did you forget to disable ULPS or something? I'm seeing definite gains in Battlefield 3. Not that i need any more performance in this title though.

 

[LtMatt]

Nice one Lt. Since getting these cards I have experienced a few CTDs on sleeping dogs and far cry 3 (only games ive played so far) and I know its not my cpu as with all the previous cards Ive had I never got a CTD now they happen quite a lot. All my previous cards were NVidia, is this something that just happens with crossfire and I should just get on with it or am I missing something.
Cards aren't OC'd yet an d I'm on 13.11 beta 3 I think.

I notice you have HIS ICE-Q cards. Your cards are probably throttling even at stock and causing the crashing issues you mention. Have a good read of this thread. It will show you how to remove the throttling problem and get much better performance from the cards. Post in that thread if you need help. The best long term solution is to flash the first bios you see in the OP.

I know you like comparisons from the big daddy single chips so I thought I'd throw a Tomb Raider one in here. Same settings as you. Will stick in spoilers to save the thread from being clogged:

Spoiler

Good lad Rusty.

 

[LtMatt]

Some good increases in minimums there, especially for BF3 (clearly Metro 2033 has had some major issue resolved...).

Yes overall nice drivers with some small improvements from the previous sets. Hard to notice a difference in game though to be honest.

How do those Metro scores work? 76% and 3%?

If you see the second post i put a link to the previous benchmark scores. Metro2033 had a minimum of 12.5 then and this time 22. This is the reason for the very high percentage increase in minimum fps. Metro benchmark is a bit buggy so i wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

Yeah sorry I didn't mention this but I've already done all that. I just wondered that's all as I don't have much experience with crossfire (only ever had SLI).

It may just be those games, I'll have to see.

Maybe try reinstalling drivers, using driver fusion to clean your system up of old nvidia drivers as well as amd drivers, as per my thread here. Try verifying game cache files for sleeping dogs and farcry 3. Make sure you gpu's are completely stable. Try adding a notch or two of vcore to make sure. Make sure gpu's are not over heating and causing the crashes. Keeping them below 75-80c should be good enough at stock. The only other thing i can think of is a fresh windows install.

 

[LtMatt]

No mate I always disable ulps. Currently running 1100/1375 my resolution is 5760x1080 the beta 6 certainly perform worse than the beta 3 drivers for me.

Fair enough stick with Beta 3 then. Don't think there is much difference between Beta 3 and 5. Beta 3 had a bug in it regarding 4K, hence Beta 5 was released a few days after.

 

[LtMatt]

I'm just doing a fresh install of win 8.1 on my xfire rig now when its sorted I will give these beta 6 drivers another go.

Furry muff. Working well with no crashes or anything here.

 

[LtMatt]

Out of interest Matt are you using radeon pro when you play bf3?

No mate, just afterburner to monitor gpu usage, temps, fps etc.

 

[LtMatt]

I wonder if its that giving me performance dips in bf3 with the beta 6 drivers, I might just sack it off I just like the smaa injector and frame limiter within it.

Could be. MSI afterburner has a frame limiter.

 

[LtMatt]

I didn't use fraps. I had afterburner running but the fps data was recorded by the built in benchmark tool. It displayed the fps (min,max,avg) after the benched was finished via my browser.

 

[LtMatt]

Right well ive done a frsh win 8.1 x64 install today and would have to agree with LtMatt these drivers are fantastic for 7950 xfire, ive been using radeon pro and it only adds to the performance (imagine how good amd drivers would be if radeon pro was built into ccc!)

Battlefield 3
Batman Origins
Crysis 3

All better with this driver now.

Yep always worth using the latest betas if you're a gamer/multi gpu user.

 

[LtMatt]

Hi Matt,
Thanks for the informative post.
I read your thread on using Radion Pro to improve micro stuttering; would you suggest overlaying that fix on top of these drivers or would it be sufficient just to install the beta drivers?
A better way of saying it might be do newer drivers fix that issue (I have a 7990).

Cheers!

Bump for Matt as I can see him online, hope you dont mind matt!

No problem Clark, i didn't see your post so just as well.

I don't use RadeonPro much these days, unless i need to force vsync or triple buffering in certain games. Dead space games being an example of this. Its still handy to have though so i recommend having it on your pc anyway just in case.

As far as microstutter goes, i don't need RadeonPro to fix that since the introduction of frame pacing back in August with 13.8 beta drivers. Just use the latest drivers, 13.11 Beta 6 and see how you get on. Always best to stay up to date with the latest beta if you're a multi gpu user.

 

[LtMatt]

Top man, thanks Matt!

One more question for you if I can, is there anything I can do in RadeonPro to improve the image quality in games (esp BF3 and BF4)?

Or is it just a case of turning up to 11 on the in game graphics options?

Cheers.

Others know more about the image quality improvements with RadeonPro than me, so il leave that to them. Generally though i prefer using in game settings and CCC settings. I recommend creating a bf3/bf4 profile in CCC and using these settings. You should disable in game FXAA. AMD's MLAA is a better version of FXAA.

 

[LtMatt]

I've just seen some Beta 7 drivers have come out, are you planning on benching them?

Unlikely unless they offer some substantial changes over Beta 6.