Tech Shout!

On Wednesday, ATI released its Catalyst driver update for September. The new Catalyst 6.9 driver pack brings ATI CrossFire multi-GPU functionality to Intel P965 based motherboards with two physical PCI Express x16 slots. MSI has initially revealed that its P965 Platinum motherboard was compatible with ATI’s CrossFire multi-GPU technology. Present CrossFire support for Intel P965 chipsets is limited to Direct3D only though. Gamers wanting OpenGL CrossFire support on Intel’s P965 chipset will have to wait or go in for an Intel 975X or ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 based motherboard.

As against previously launched Catalyst drivers, the new Catalyst 6.9 only has minor performance enhancements in two 3D applications. 3DMark2006 scores improve up to 23.7% when anti-aliasing is enabled on Radeon X1300, X1600 and X1800 graphics cards. Doom 3 gains up to 9.3% performance enhancements thanks to superior compilers and engine optimizations. The gains are found on the entire range of Radeon 1000 series.

The new Catalyst 6.9 drivers are available on ATI’s download site for Windows XP, Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and Windows XP Professional x64.

For more info click here.