Here is a quick performance test of ForceWare 186.18 WHQL vs ForceWare 190.38 WHQL.
Testbed:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 default clocks
- Mainboard: EVGA 790i Ultra SLI
- Memory: 2048Mb DDR3
- Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GTX 295 CO OP Edition – default clocks (GPU core:576MHz / Shaders: 1242MHz and memory: 1008MHz)
- WinXP SP2 32-bit
- FurMark 1.7.0 (OpenGL)
- FluidMark 1.1.1 (OpenGL / PhysX)
- Lightsmark 2008 (OpenGL)
- Unigine Tropics 1.2 (OpenGL / Direct3D)
Settings:
- FurMark and FluidMark: fullscreen 1280×1024 60 seconds
- Lightsmark 2008: default
- Unigine Tropics 1.2: fullscreen 1280×1024 anisotropy 4X
ForceWare 186.18 | ForceWare 190.38 | Gain | |
FurMark | 4239 | 4275 | +0.85% |
FurMark SLI |
8507 | 8505 | 0% |
FurMark MSAA 16X |
1122 | 1120 | 0% |
FurMark MSAA 16X + SLI |
2232 | 2230 | 0% |
FluidMark 1.1.1 | 10452 | 10546 | +1.0% |
Lightsmark2008 SLI |
716 | 733 | +2.4% |
Lightsmark2008 | 652 | 732 | +12.3% |
Unigine Tropics D3D9 | 1879 | 1920 | +2.2% |
Unigine Tropics D3D9 SLI |
3372 | 3473 | +3% |
Unigine Tropics D3D9 SLI + MSAA 8X |
2678 | 2703 | +1.0% |
Unigine Tropics OpenGL | 1631 | 1625 | -0.3% |
Unigine Tropics OpenGL SLI |
936 | 942 | +0.6 |
Conclusion: under Windows XP, there’s a little performance gain but if you are fine with ForceWare 186.18, it’s not necessary to update them unless you want to enjoy the new features like power management or CUDA 2.3 (you need the 190.38 to play with CUDA 2.3 SDK samples…).
in forceware 109.38 you access more directx11 api for applications
how about some quick gaming? single res from like 3 games test?