I recently read this Tech Report review:

http://techreport.com/review/24022/does-the-radeon-hd-7950-stumble-in-windows-8

and it highlighted an issue with the current gen of AMD cards in many games. There was much more inconsistency between how fast frames are being rendered on the AMD card and they showed high speed video showing the effects in Skyrim.

I am running a 6950 and I am not sure if they have the same issue but I have noticed some stuttering in Skyrim as well very similar to that shown in the Tech Report's video.

Is this a hardware fault or a driver fault and is it going to be fixed? I have not really noticed much stuttering in any other games and my FPS remains high in nearly all games, including Skyrim. I have been contemplating an upgrade to the 8970 when it launches but I this worries me and I want to make sure if I buy a high end card that I will be getting the smoothest experience possible in games.

Thanks for your replies.

It's probably a driver thing.  The overall performance of each GPU is close enough that it makes me think there isn't that much difference in the speed of the hardware its self... it's just the load balancing of the drivers which is slightly off.  That's the unfortunate reality of a modern system.  The images you see on your screen are created by the game, the hardware, and the driver all working together.  If one of them gets out of whack it affects everything.

The good news is that since it is most likely a driver thing, then it's possible that you'll be able to fix it without a hardware upgrade.  However, considering that life inside AMD is probably pretty uncomfortable at the moment... I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
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Troll Hunter

The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.

Does AMD or the Radeon driver team have any specific comments though? I really want to know if they are aware of this and if there is a fix coming.

I spotted this in the article:

"AMD spokesman Antal Tungler told us that our article had "raised some alarms" internally at the company, and he said they hoped to have some answers for us "before the holiday.""

I am just anxious to see if they are really going to follow up with this b/c it throws into doubt my next gpu purchase.

Yeah I'm thinkin someone at AMD has probably heard about it.  Whether or not a fix will ever be set loose upon the world instead of just being rolled into the next gen's drivers... we'll see.  It may seem obvious that there would be, but when technical people and bean counters collide many strange things can happen.

Do not meddle in the affairs of archers, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
Post Count: +8510
Troll Hunter

The opinions expressed above do not represent those of Advanced Micro Devices or any of their affiliates.