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NVIDIA GeForce 337.50 Beta Driver Comparison - PAGE 2
Wassim Oueslati - Tuesday, April 15th, 2014 Like ShareBenchmarks:
Starting with the Call of Duty: Ghosts results, I tried to test the cards under the different drivers so the difference in performance could be seen at a glance. Lots of bullets were fired to get this benchmark completed; as such, I ask for a moment of silence for the (in-game) fallen.
A nice performance increase can be seen with a single GTX 750 Ti and a single GTX 770 at 14% and 7%, respectively. For SLI, an impressive 15 FPS gain is achieved with a dual GTX 780 Ti setup. If you are wondering why there is no chart for Call of Duty: Ghosts with a 5760x1080 resolution, the simple answer is that the game does not run natively at that resolution and it requires hacking the game file and installing third party software to fix the field of view.
Next we take a look at Battlefield 4, just to keep them bullets flying.
Here we notice very minimal performance gain across the board in the 1920x1080 resolution setting. In a triple monitor setup however, we notice a performance boost of 15% with the GTX 770 in SLI and an increase of close to 9% for single and dual GTX 780 Ti configurations.
Last shooter of the benchmark lineup is Metro: Last Light. I opted for the built-in benchmark to ensure consistency.
The very demanding sequel to Metro sees gains in performance across the board with the 1920x1080 resolution benchmarks. We notice a 17% performance increase with the GTX 750 Ti, close to a 14% increase with a single GTX 770, and minor improvements as we get into a GTX 770 SLI setup and the higher end GTX 780 Ti configurations.
Next on the bench is Batman: Arkham Origins, a great game with stunning visuals.
Again, we notice a minimal performance increase under the 1920x1080 resolution benchmark, outside of a 5% gain with a GTX 770 SLI setup and a 4% gain with a GTX 780 Ti SLI setup. Moving to the triple monitor gaming, an impressive 40% performance increase is achieved with a GTX 770 SLI configuration.
The last game tested is Total War: Rome II. This title is in fact behind the controversial "Up to 71%" claim that NVIDIA used to promote the GeForce 337.50 beta performance drivers. Naturally I had to see it for myself.
Well, I have to admit that NVIDIA did a darn great job in optimizing the SLI performance with Total War: Rome II. A performance boost of 65.5% and 73% is indeed achieved with a single and SLI GTX 770 setup, respectively. The GTX 780 TI SLI configuration similarly sees an improvement of close to 72%. The numbers correspond to what NVIDIA claimed, though the reason behind them is not so much related to API optimization but rather to an added SLI profile. In this light, I definitely understand why these specific numbers ignited such controversy in the first place.
Conclusion:
Overall, I consider the beta driver release to be more than welcome. It's true that NVIDIA came across as a bit boastful when announcing the GeForce 337.50 beta drivers, and a more subtle marketing approach could've gone a long way in avoiding any media backfire. That being said, performance gains achieved by a free driver update have always been good for PC gamers, even if the increase is not so spectacular across the board. There was something for every performance tier with the NVIDIA GeForce 337.50 Beta drivers, and a consistent five frames per second increase in certain titles is still better than none. NVIDIA achieved very good FPS increase by optimizing on an existing API with a BETA driver update. The Green Team will want to stay on the right track if it is to squeeze every frame available when DirectX 12 is rolled out.
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my gtx580 is picky it seems... 314.22 was my go-to driver... a couple games forced my hand to 320.49 beta which was pretty good... and 337.50 beta is decent.
so im back to testing all drivers and choosing the lesser of the evils... the main reason i largely left radeon cards.
things change i suppose