Testing AMD and Nvidia drivers from 2020 to today : Test |CUP | Specs |Config

AMD’s and Nvidia’s current graphics cards are already a year and a half old, so the drivers have evolved accordingly. This sometimes brings significantly more performance, as the test on a GeForce RTX 3080 and Radeon RX 6800 XT shows.

AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT (test) and thus the beginning of the RDNA 2 generation is now 16 months old, Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 (test) and thus Ampere is already 18 months old. Over time, the overall package has been significantly further developed with various new driver versions. This raises the question of how much faster the GeForce and Radeon have become as a result of the software updates.

RTX 3080 and RX 6800 XT in a driver duel

The article tries to clarify this question as well as possible, although this is not easy. Because since the release of the graphics cards, not only has the classic driver development made progress, but other factors have also changed. One of them is Resizable BAR, which has also improved significantly over time and is therefore a factor in performance improvements that should not be underestimated. In addition, the old drivers must handle benchmarks with new games that were a long way off when the drivers were finalized. And last but not least, the benchmarks are carried out with Windows 11, which was also not yet released when Ampere and RDNA 2 were in the starting blocks.

Accordingly, the following benchmarks will not only show the pure driver development, but also how much faster the overall package has become in current games – that should be taken into account. This will also clarify the question of how useful it is to always install the latest drivers. Or whether it is sufficient to rely on an old but proven software version.

Test system and driver

The current graphics card test system is used for the article. The graphics cards are the Radeon RX 6800 XT and the GeForce RTX 3080 in AMD’s or Nvidia’s reference design. The test procedure corresponds to the usual procedures, which can be read in the article linked above.

The editors have chosen 2,560 × 1,440 as the resolution. The high-end accelerators used in the test also have no problem with 3,840 × 2,160, but a different, lower resolution would then have to be used for the ray tracing tests. In addition, WQHD represents a good mix of GPU and CPU load in order to create more complex requirements.

The performance rating is not based on all games

It should also be mentioned that some games such as Battlefield 2042, Call of Duty: Vanguard and Deathloop no longer start with very old drivers. It just shows a warning with details – you can’t get into the game without a newer driver. In a title, nothing happens after clicking the link. There is also the case that ray tracing does not want to be activated. Corresponding games can therefore not be represented in the performance rating for mathematical reasons alone, but the benchmark results are listed in the individual game diagrams.

The drivers used in detail

Four different AMD and Nvidia drivers are used in the test. It starts with the GeForce 456.38 and the Adrenalin 20.11.2 and thus the first drivers that supported the GeForce RTX 3080 and the Radeon RX 6800 XT. The GeForce 471.96 and Adrenalin 21.9.2, which were released in August and September 2021 respectively, are the second in the group. The GeForce was exactly one year old, the Radeon ten months. The next representatives are the GeForce 497.09 and the Adrenalin 21.12.1, with which ComputerBase created the new test course. And last but not least, the current driver versions follow with the GeForce 511.79 and the Adrenalin 22.2.3.

Benchmarks with and without ray tracing in 2,560 × 1,440

Not all games even start with old drivers. Battlefield 2042, Call of Duty: Vanguard and Deathloop sometimes completely refuse to work with the oldest software versions. The titles might still run normally, but they require a certain minimum driver version in order to start at all. In Doom Eternal and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, ray tracing does not work with old drivers, the option is grayed out. And Forza Horizon 5 and The Riftbreaker with ray tracing even crash depending on the hardware. Also worth mentioning is the extremely slow performance with old Radeon drivers in Halo Infinite. The following table shows more details about the problems. All games or settings mentioned in this result in automatic exclusion from the ratings.

Nvidia proves to be surprisingly stable

The GeForce RTX 3080 is still in good shape even with the old driver, which doesn’t change much in new games, but rather changes in detail. On average, the Ampere accelerator in rasterizer games with the GeForce 456.38 primary driver is just 2 percent slower at average FPS than the latest GeForce 511.79. In ray tracing games, the gap doubles to 4 percent, but it’s still small. In percentile FPS, the gaps are slightly larger, but remain relatively small. The latest driver is 4 percent better than the oldest software version in this discipline in rasterizer games and 6 percent in ray tracing games.

A look at the individual titles shows that there are definitely cases where new driver versions accelerate the GeForce RTX 3080 a good deal more than on average, which also means that nothing changes at all in some games. Ironically, the meanwhile quite old Assassin’s Creed Valhalla has one of the biggest increases in performance. Because both the GeForce 497.09 and the GeForce 511.79 bring clear advantages over the GeForce 456.38 and the GeForce 471.96, which amount to a maximum of 14 percent.

Also worth noting are 16 percent better percentile FPS in Far Cry 6 with ray tracing enabled with the GeForce 511.79 compared to the GeForce 456.38 and up to 14 percent more FPS in God of War with the two latest drivers tested. With the GeForce 511.79, Halo Infinite is again accelerated a bit compared to the older versions, with a maximum advantage of 15 percent. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice also has a double-digit advantage with 10 percent more FPS. Battlefield 2042, meanwhile, runs slightly slower with the latest driver than with older versions, as does Life is Strange: True Colors.

On AMD there are much bigger differences

The GeForce RTX 3080 is quite stable in performance, but AMD has significantly larger differences. When switching from Adrenalin 20.11.2 to Adrenalin 21.9.2, which is not quite a year newer, the Radeon RX 6800 XT increases average FPS by 8 percent in rasterizer games and by 9 percent in ray tracing titles. That’s already more than twice as much as Nvidia did with the newest compared to the oldest driver. The Adrenalin 21.12.1 brings another 2 or 3 percent more frames per second, while the current Adrenalin 22.2.3 is 1 percent slower again. The delta between the oldest and the newest driver is still a high 10 percent (rasterizer) and 14 percent (ray tracing). This also explains why AMD was able to convert a slight deficit of the Radeon RX 6800 XT into a slight lead over the GeForce RTX 3080 at launch.

In the individual games, things go really well in places. With the Adrenalin 21.9.2, the Radeon RX 6800 XT in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, for example, is just 24 percent faster. This can probably be explained by the fact that AMD Resizable BAR significantly improved some driver versions after the launch. A few other titles in the test course also benefit from this. Double-digit performance improvements are accordingly not uncommon. Battlefield 2042 up up to 13 percent with new drivers, Cyberpunk 2077 up 17 percent, Diablo II: Resurrected up 10 percent, F1 2021 up 16 percent, Far Cry 6 up 15 percent, Forza Horizon 5 up 25 percent, Guardian’s of the Galaxy by 10 percent, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by 13 percent, Kena: Bridge of Spirits by 10 percent, Resident Evil Village by 17 percent, and The Riftbreaker by 10 percent.

And those were just the cases in rasterizer games. If ray tracing is added, the differences tend to be even greater. Battlefield 2042 then increases by 24 percent, Deathloop by 36 percent, F1 2021 by 12 percent, Far Cry 6 by 28 percent, Hellblade by 13 percent and Resident Evil Village by 12 percent. And the editors haven’t even mentioned the real highlight yet, because Halo Infinite just stutters before Adrenaline 21.12.1, but with the December driver there is suddenly a huge leap in performance by a factor of more than 4.

Current drivers are more important for Radeon than for GeForce

Some of the big jumps in performance are probably due to special optimizations for individual titles, but there were also many general improvements, especially at the beginning of the RDNA 2 era. With the Adrenalin 21.9.2 you are usually already on the safe side, but you are only really up to date with the Adrenalin 21.12.1 – since the software version there does not seem to have been any real increase in performance. The Adrenalin 22.2.3 no longer shows any advantages either.

closing words

Even if the recommendation still applies to always have the latest possible graphics card driver installed, the test shows larger differences between AMD and Nvidia graphics cards. For example, while the GeForce RTX 3080 shows fairly consistent performance between different driver versions, there are often big differences on the Radeon RX 6800 XT.

The result: If you haven’t installed the latest software on the Radeon, you’re wasting a lot of performance in both new and old games. In some titles, this also applies to the GeForce RTX 3080, but the number of games is significantly lower and the same usually applies to the increase in performance. An Nvidia GPU should also always have up-to-date drivers installed. But if you forget this, you rarely have to deal with major performance losses.

And so with Ampere and RDNA 2, what has been the case for a long time still applies: Nvidia usually manages to act fairly close to the theoretical maximum performance of its own graphics cards with very early drivers. AMD has made progress in this regard, but the early drivers often cannot fully utilize the full potential of the hardware. This will only come with future driver versions. And after about a year, the Radeon has also reached its maximum.

Was this article interesting, helpful or both? The editors are happy about any support from ComputerBase Pro and disabled ad blockers. More about ads on ComputerBase.