ATI Driver Update: OpenGL Performance

ATI has never been known to have strong performance with Open GL, and the early reviews of their X1000 showed no change from the previous generation. One of the key architectural improvments over the last round of cards though was the addition of a programmable memory controller. This addition allows ATI to make minor adjustments in their drivers to optimize for different applications. In this case, it's OpenGL.

ATI has released a public Beta of the drivers, and we have put them to the test on their as-of-yet-unreleased flagship card. We ran the card against a standard X1800 XT as well as a 7800 GTX with the latest Nvidia drivers.