Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.33GHz (366MHz x 9 and FSB 1:1)
Motherboard(s): ABIT IN9 32X-MAX Wi-Fi (Supplied by Universal ABIT)
Memory: 2 X 1GB Crucial PC8000 5-5-5-15 (Supplied by Crucial)
Hard Disk(s): Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA 2
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
Drivers: nVidia ForceWare 93.71, ATI Catalyst 7.2 and DX9c


While we aren’t testing it, there is just one stated improvement this month, Dark Messiah Might and Magic - personally I cannot say I’ve heard of the game but with promises of up to 60% on the higher end products, some driver tweaks have clearly been discovered. If you play this game and only this game, you can safely skip the rest of this article and update your drivers straight away.

We don’t test Dark Messiah, so if you do play it, let us know in the comments if you saw a performance increase. Otherwise read on and we’ll see what type of performance increases or decreases we see in the latest release Catalyst display drivers.

Is it worth updating? Let’s find out now!



3DMark05

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 130
Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com
Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark05/
Buy It Here




3DMark05 is now the second latest version in the popular 3DMark “Gamers Benchmark” series. It includes a complete set of DX9 benchmarks which tests Shader Model 2.0 and above.

For more information on the 3DMark05 benchmark, we recommend you read our preview here.




We see small performance increases across the board under 3DMark05 with the latest display driver.