Catalyst 11.6 vs 11.6b vs 11.7 comparison

[Endeavour79]

This is a copy from the normal forum as Newbies can't reply there..

Hi Miners,

I want to spend some time to give you an update and share my experience with the three current options. Catalyst 11.6, 11.6b and 11.7. I do skip the 11.8 as I feel this is too early stage to be worth a look.
I am not comparing technical details but will have a look at the mining experience, hashrate, temperature and stability.

I have 3 machines running, all of them with Win7 64bit. I am using one 2x HD5830, one 4x HD5830 and one mixed (HD6970, HD5850 and HD5830) setup.

Let's have a look   at the different drivers and my experience with it.

Catalyst 11.6:

pros:

• Lowest GPU temperature
• Lowest CPU usage
• Normal overclocking behaviour.

cons:

• Dummy plug required
• Flash/Youtube freeze bug (Machine freezes often when using flash hardware acceleration. For potential fix disable hardware acceleration in flash player menu.)

Catalyst 11.6b:

pros:

• Dummy plug not required*
• Normal overclocking behaviour.*
• Contains various bugfixes since 11.6

cons:

• higher GPU temperature than 11.6
• slightly higher CPU usage compared to 11.6
• partly fixed Flash/Youtube freeze bug (Machine freezes sometimes when using flash hardware acceleration. For potential fix disable hardware acceleration in flash player menu.)

Catalyst 11.7:

pros:

• APP SDK 2.5
• Flash/Youtube freeze bug fixed
• Latest (non beta) driver available.
• contains various bugfixes compared to 11.6
• Dummy plug required not required*

cons:

• CPU usage 100% at Single and Dual Core systems (possibly a APP SDK 2.5 bug)
• High GPU temperature

* If you want to under/overclock your card you still need dummy plugs or a monitor to be connected to the card. Otherwise software based overclocking tools don't work, especially in Multi-GPU configurations.

Conclusion:
If you use a dedicated miner machine you probably don't need the latest bugfixes and you pay more attention on stability, temperature and CPU usage. From this perspective I would recommend to use Catalyst 11.6.
If you mine with your standard PC which you also use for gaming then probably Catalyst 11.7 is the better choice.
The hash-rate did not noticeable change between all the drivers.

Feel free to comment..
Happy mining  

End.


Donations welcome  

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[stabs]

Why are you saying you can't OC 11.7 multi gpu configurations without dummy plugs?  It's working fine for me.

[Endeavour79]

Because for me it did only work when I had a monitor or dummy plug installed.

[bustever]

Hi,
I use Catalyst 11.6 for 5870. they are the most effective for mining . 

[terodeg]

for catalyst Catalyst 11.6 u are referring also on app sdk 2.4 or only the ati video driver???
because the app sdk more efficent is 2.1 nor 2.4 or 2.5.

[Endeavour79]

I mean SDK 2.4

I tried SDK 2.1 but I was not able to get it running smoothly with 11.6 driver at Win7 64bit.

[mikethebodacious]

I mean SDK 2.4

I tried SDK 2.1 but I was not able to get it running smoothly with 11.6 driver at Win7 64bit.

Same here, SDK 2.1 does not work well with Catalyst 11.6, if at all.  Mine would constantly freeze or lockup, and if that didn't happen my hash rate was actually lower than with AMD APP 2.4.  This was even prior to the Service Pack 1 update to Win7 64-bit.

[wacko]

Some OC tools don't work with multi-GPU setup and 11.7 without plugs, but some do, Sapphire Trixx works just fine, for example. The only downside is that you can't lower gpu voltage with Trixx, but I guess most users don't do this anyway.

[terodeg]

I mean SDK 2.4

I tried SDK 2.1 but I was not able to get it running smoothly with 11.6 driver at Win7 64bit.

Same here, SDK 2.1 does not work well with Catalyst 11.6, if at all.  Mine would constantly freeze or lockup, and if that didn't happen my hash rate was actually lower than with AMD APP 2.4.  This was even prior to the Service Pack 1 update to Win7 64-bit.

what u intend for running smoothly? i'm running it on 3 videocards for 12 days. no problem in windows7 64bit catalyst 11.6 drivers and app 2.1

[Endeavour79]

I mean SDK 2.4

I tried SDK 2.1 but I was not able to get it running smoothly with 11.6 driver at Win7 64bit.

Same here, SDK 2.1 does not work well with Catalyst 11.6, if at all.  Mine would constantly freeze or lockup, and if that didn't happen my hash rate was actually lower than with AMD APP 2.4.  This was even prior to the Service Pack 1 update to Win7 64-bit.

what u intend for running smoothly? i'm running it on 3 videocards for 12 days. no problem in windows7 64bit catalyst 11.6 drivers and app 2.1

Miners froze when combining 11.6 with SDK 2.1. Phoenix.exe was stuck with 99% CPU usage rendering PC unusable.. Machines froze at random events.. Just as example.
For me 11.6 with SDK 2.4 is the best option from all. (Stable and fast..I don't mind a few MHash for having a good system stability.)

[Elder III]

Nice Comparison - I was leaning towards the same conclusion myself, but it is nice to see it all laid out by someone else as well.

[Beta-coiner1]

Miners froze when combining 11.6 with SDK 2.1. Phoenix.exe was stuck with 99% CPU usage rendering PC unusable.. Machines froze at random events.. Just as example.
For me 11.6 with SDK 2.4 is the best option from all. (Stable and fast..I don't mind a few MHash for having a good system stability.)

Interesting,I get pretty much the same results but using 11.6b w/ Sdk 2.5.This seems to be the new stable and updated sweet spot.

I'm only guessing that AMD fuxored up an issue they were trying to fix.I'm guessing it was the video freeze bug that the 11.7 WHQL "fixed" that made the Cpu usage bug appeared for me as I never had the issue until the driver change.