Catalyst 8.3 - What Happened?

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:23:26 Post Subject: Catalyst 8.3 - What Happened?

I am doing some video card testing, and was wondering WTF

happened when benching some of my existing cards. My HD3850 used to do over 10000 in 3DMark06 (originally using 7.11), but now with Catalyst 8.3 it does 9500 or so.

I was troubleshooting like crazy, running in Vista and XP, overclocking the CPU and memory different, just trying to see what I might have done. Then I finally saw other people were seeing the same thing.

The one sponsor was insistent that 8.3 be used, so they asked for it.

Wow... smooth move ATI, I mean AMD. When will my stock be worth less than the paper it is printed on?

SpeedZone · Rated NC-17 Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 193

Hi Doctor Feelgood,

I've heard similar roumors lately from other people, so makes me wonder whether all this is true or not? I've used almost all versions of Catalyst over the past few years...and exept maybe 2 versions which really caused problems, I havent seen any big gains or drops in 3DMark06. It's true that i havent tested last few versions lately in 3DMark06, but I dont believe last version had some major problems!?

Actually it was the first one i used when i received and overclocked my hd3870 (860/1251)...and i got 13299 points...in win xp pro....and with q6600 @ 3.4Ghz. So from my point of view....and by reading other reviews with similar setups...I believe this is good score for this card. Dont know for 3850? But it should get around 10K yes.

Actually I am glad i didnt have it sooner....cause i must admit i would also be dissapointed if i first saw it could score up to 14K or more....and later get my current score of 13299... Crazy

One more thing to mention (although i know you know that already, Laughing

), I noticed there is some 1K point difference in 3DMark06 results, between winxp pro and vista (in favour of winxp). So makes me wonder where do you get 9500points? In Vista? And what about in XPs?

Good luck and lets all hope for the best in Catalyst 8.4. Wink

Maybe guys over at AMD/ATI were too busy with making the CrossFire to work properly in 8.3 (although i've heard its still far from being perfect)...and that they'll give us raw speed back in 8.4 Laughing

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Sun, 06 Apr 2008 18:35:48 Post Subject:

I tried XP and Vista, both 32 bit varieties... The cards always did better in XP than Vista, but both dropped a bit. 9500-ish was my Vista score. I think XP was like 9700.

I am testing two 3850s, a 3870, and a 3870X2 now... things are looking a bit better.

SpeedZone · Rated NC-17 Joined: 06 Apr 2008 Posts: 193

Ok glad to hear that things are looking better....so let us know the results please,ok? Wink

And once more i am glad i havent had card sooner to test it with i.e. Catalyst 7.11, cause i would surely be crying out loud now. Laughing