This holiday season, AMD is offering an enticing game bundle for prospective hardware purchasers. They’re also releasing their newest driver, which they say is the best Catalyst yet.
Never Settle Game Bundle
Coinciding with the holidays this year is the release of three big titles – Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Hitman Absolution and Farcry 3. It’s these three titles plus the relatively new title, Sleeping Dogs, that AMD is bringing with their Never Settle bundle.
Holiday Gaming Evolved
The biggest bundle offered is with 7900 series GPUs (the HD 7970 and HD 7950, plus their GHz editions). While Medal of Honor Warfighter isn’t a huge discount at 20% off, AMD says this is an exclusive deal and the only Medal of Honor: Warfighter deal anywhere. The biggest deal is that you get Sleeping Dogs, Farcry 3, and Hitman Absolution all free.
Ultimate Never Settle Bundle
Once you move down the AMD GPU spectrum, the offers remain but become a little slimmer. If you buy a single 7800 series or 7770 GHz Edition, you get the MoH deal plus free Farcry 3. If you buy two of each of those, Hitman Absolution is added to the deal.
Never Settle Bundle
As a monetary value (assuming full retail price for the games), this is actually a pretty sweet deal.
Game Bundle Value
As far as distribution, these deals will be available on all applicable AMD graphics cards from all participating etailers. Yes, the vast majority of the GPUs to get this deal will be online purchases. Most cards are bought this way anyway, especially in our readership, so that’s fine by us. The method of distribution will be coupons placed in your GPU’s shipping box by your etailer. It should apply to all AMD GPUs in the program, regardless of manufacturer. You’ll get your GPUs, then you use the coupons and apply them at whichever software distributes that particular title (i.e. Steam & Origin).
Never Settle Driver – Catalyst 12.11
Free games aren’t the only thing starting today. AMD’s newest Catalyst 12.11 driver is released today as well. They estimate up to 15% performance gains in many titles.
Never Settle Driver
The biggest performance increases actually come from Battlefield 3. On some maps in some locations, they say they have seen up to 40% FPS increase, 15% was just the average.
Battlefield 3 and Medal of Honor: Warfighter Gains
BF3 isn’t the only title to reap the benefits of the new driver either. One important thing to note that was rather off-putting on this graph, is resolution. Note that AMD chose to present whatever the highest gain was, resolution independent. Note if you run a different resolution, the performance increase will not be the same and will likely be less. I understand why they might want to put their best foot forward, but that’s a bit extreme in my humble opinion.
Performance Gains – Mind the Resolution!
They’ve supplied a couple slides of value vs. the competition as well. For those of you skeptical as I am about such broad claims, here is the footnote showing how AMD came up with all of the numbers.
 Value vs. the Competition |
 Value vs. the Competition |
Value vs. the Competition
There you have it folks, good news for AMD GPU fans all around. AMD hopes the news will bring some new AMD fans at the same time. It’s a great game bundle if you’re interested in a new AMD GPU for the holidays. The driver improvements will make future and current AMD GPU owners happy.
- Jeremy Vaughan (hokiealumnus)
Tags: 12.11, amd, catalyst, driver, game, gpu, Graphics, new, promotion
10-22-12 08:32 AM
10-22-12 09:26 AM
I was looking for these beta drivers but can't find them anywhere.
Is 12.11 version already released or its just early info about what we can expect soon ?
10-22-12 10:50 AM
10-22-12 11:56 AM
results look good
10-22-12 11:56 AM
Download from here. Hope i ain`t breaking any rules
10-22-12 11:59 AM
10-22-12 12:22 PM
EDIT - I'm not sure about the outside-the-US part. There doesn't appear to be anything in the terms & conditions, which I'll paste below in their entirety. It does say "void in any country where prohibited", which leads me to believe it's valid any any country that doesn't prohibit such things.
10-22-12 01:11 PM
"At the request of AMD the driver has been taken offline. They discovered some bugs and a new build is due to be released later today. Please keep checking this post, once we have the new build we'll update the file-mirror and thus the download."
10-22-12 02:03 PM
10-22-12 02:15 PM
10-22-12 02:53 PM
10-22-12 03:10 PM
Was looking at picking up a GTX670.....but pfft!...I could get a 7970 for cheaper , with 4 games and mop the floor with that GTX670. I'm not brand loyal to any of this stuff....and that new bundle is just to good to pass up!
BTW.....i'll be stepping up from a AMD 4000+ system with a GTX260 ( I had a 7800GTX in it before).....I know huh? This is going to be amazing.
10-22-12 03:16 PM
10-22-12 03:26 PM
Think sites like newegg and tigerdirect will be advertising if they're participating retailers in this? Was about to pull the trigger on a 7970 at like 4AM this morning but then saw the news and decided to hold off til I know more. Because I want all 3 of those games.
10-22-12 04:20 PM
An SSD is what makes your friends say "Damn, that computer is fast...".
10-22-12 05:46 PM
10-22-12 07:46 PM
12.11 beta 3 are out. Grab them while they`re hot
Installing right now. Will come back with feedback
10-22-12 07:46 PM
3DMark 11, Gigabyte 7870 @ Stock: Driver 12.8 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4724439
Graphics Score
6628
Gigabyte 7870 @ Stock: Driver 12.11 http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4724555
Graphics Score
7677
Thats + 1049 points.
Overclocking next...
10-22-12 07:51 PM
10-22-12 07:59 PM
10-22-12 08:37 PM
I will add a full list of benches including a couple of games later, or tomorrow probably, including BF3 which is supposed to be up by ~15%
10-22-12 08:38 PM
10-22-12 09:20 PM
Everything but the Physix score is up, only a new CPU can fix that.
Anyway, a little teaser. this at 1200 / 1500
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4725428
Score
P7778 3DMarks
Graphics Score
8485
Physics Score
6425
Combined Score
5947
10-22-12 10:10 PM
10-22-12 10:49 PM
10-22-12 10:56 PM
10-22-12 11:34 PM
BF3 doesn`t go below 55 fps now (my cpu sucks).
One thing i don`t like is that my idle memory clock doesn`t drop. Stays the same as in full load.
ps: 7970 dcu2top
10-22-12 11:36 PM
The card normally: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...918&CatId=7387
With the bundle: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...415&CatId=7387
I contacted them via the livechat and the person I spoke with had no idea what I was talking about after spending 30 minutes "looking into it." I contacted them by phone and was told by the phone rep that to receive the free games I'd have to buy their bundle that is $45 more. So if anyone was considering that XFX 7970 from them, think about this. Very discouraging.
10-22-12 11:57 PM
10-23-12 04:52 AM
You're on my same wave length man! My newegg parts showed up today.....which were 2 X 1TB WD cav blacks and a new Samsung 830 SSD 128GB! Was planning on installing windows on the SSD for quick boot times and pretty much everything else on my 2 WD drives.
I got my eyes on the 3GB Sapphire 7970 Ghz ED as soon as it comes back in stock. Hopefully....1 - 2 weeks.....and I'll finally be able to play some newer games. Basically.....I have to catch up on everything since Doom 3 , HL2 and Farcry 1......yeah....I'm that far out of the loop!
10-23-12 10:53 AM
Better wait till next generation.
10-23-12 01:25 PM
10-23-12 02:11 PM
10-23-12 03:46 PM
le:nope, still the same. Maybe they fixed the skyrim shadows not appearing at all