Latest ATI Catalyst, Omega, and DNA Drivers Benched

Latest ATI Catalyst, Omega, and DNA Drivers Benched
Posted :: Jun 7, 2004 by Haggs

Introduction:
The time has come once again to see which ATI driver will claim the benchmark crown. The drivers up for contention were ATI's own Catalyst 4.5, and Catalyst 4.6 beta, Omega 2.5.44 (based on the Catalyst 4.5), and DNA 2.5.4.5a (also based on the Catalyst 4.5). Each driver was tested with a series of five different benchmarks: 3DMark 2001 SE (some say that this benchmark is outdated, but we threw it in the mix for good measure), 3DMark03, Aquamark 3, Gun Metal BenchMark 2, and Final Fantasy XI Benchmark 2. In between each driver we reset the computer to a common restore point to ensure that one driver would not interfere with each other. Unlike some of our past driver benchmark tests, this series had a clear winner. ATI's Catalyst 4.6 beta driver came out on top in all five of our benchmarks and did not have any noticeable compatibility issues. Of course no driver is flawless and due to the fact that it is still in its beta stage there must be some issues left to be resolved, but it showed a lot of promise.

Test System Specs (same as first ATI driver test):

Processor: AMD XP2700+ cooled with Thermaltake Volcano 11+
Memory: 512M DDR PC2700
Motherboard: MSI KT4V with onboard 10/100LAN + AC '97 Audio
Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy 2 ZS
Power Supply: Antec 400 Watts "SL400"
Primary Monitor: Dell UltraSharp 1800FP 18" LCD
Secondary Monitor: Mag Innovision 986FS 19" CRT (disabled for these tests)
Speakers: Logitech 400Watt 4.1
Video Card: 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 AGP 8x by Sapphire Tech (Directx9.0b)
Hard Drive 1: Maxtor 60 GB w/2MB Cache (for Windows only)
Hard Drive 2: Seagate 160 GB w/8MB Cache (for everything else)
DVD-ROM: 16x
CD-RW: 52x24x52x
Operating System: Updated Windows XP Professional w/SP1

Method
We created a system restore point (visit http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/howto/gethelp/systemrestore.asp for more information on system restore points).

Next we installed our first driver and ran the five benchmarks: 3DMark2001 SE, 3DMark03, AquaMark3, Gun Metal Benchmark 2, and Final Fantasy Benchmark 2 version 1.0 respectively. Then we reverted back to our system restore point and benchmarked the next driver. The drivers were tested in the following order: ATI Catalyst 4.5, ATI Catalyst 4.6 Beta, Omega 2.5.44 (based on the Catalyst 4.5 driver), and DNA 2.5.4.5a (based on the Catalyst 4.5 driver).