Performance Summary

For this graph we took the data from all individual benchmark runs and aggregated it into a single result. Cards that do not support DX11 were given a score according to their performance in all other non-DX11 tests, which means cards were not penalized for not having DirectX 11 support. Each tested card was compared to the performance it delivered with the launch driver (or the first driver that was available for the Windows 7 platform).

Conclusion

AMD's latest Catalyst 10.12 drivers bring solid performance improvements across the board for the HD 5870 series, the HD 4870 sees almost no gains. AMD highlights two new features in their drivers. One is support for OpenGL 4.1. At the moment there is no consumer application that uses that API version, so unless you are a developer working with OpenGL 4.1 this won't be of any use to you. The new DivX GPU accelerated video decoder might be more useful, even though most video content you'll come across online nowadays is in H.264 or XVID format. Nevertheless, the download provides a DivX codec, so you can continue using your favourite media playback software and won't be locked into using one that you don't like.