Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood

Besides the fluctuations of the bottom speed on the Radeon HD 4870 X2, there is nothing we can see in Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. The game does not support FSAA and is indifferent to the FSAA setting of the Catalyst driver.

Resident Evil 5 bench

The new benchmark of Resident Evil 5 does not differentiate between the two driver versions. Take note that the overclocked Radeon HD 4890 is about as fast as the dual-processor Radeon HD 4870 X2 in the third scene of the benchmark in the high-quality mode.

Conclusion

The results of my test session suggest that AMD/ATI programmers have done a good job to optimize the graphics card driver for the new OS (and not only for it because Windows Vista and Windows 7 share the same Catalyst driver pack). The Radeon HD 4890 and Radeon HD 4870 X2 perform faster with the newer driver than with Catalyst 9.7 in Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., Far Cry 2, and Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor. A smaller performance growth could also be observed in Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason, Lost Planet: Colonies, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. In the other games and benchmarks the two versions of the driver are equal to one another. The new version does not provoke a performance hit in any game, except for a minor reduction of speed in Stormrise. I noticed no image defects with the new version of the driver during my tests, so Catalyst 9.8 is undoubtedly a step forward and I recommend it for installation and use under Windows 7 and Vista.