Hey, long time no see, guys!

So, my topic.

I heard a lot of bad things about the recent drivers destroying gpus. Can someone clear the air for me and tell me if they're safe to use.

I know it sounds dumb but I wanna protect my card. Had to rma the first because of faulty v ram.

Thanks in advance, fellas.

The drivers won't destroy your video board, it just won't perform very well in some games. I prefer staying with the 320.18 WHQL drivers where I get the smoothest performance but others will have their own preferences and recommendations.

have 326.41 beta - best performing driver since 304.48 for my system

326.80 would be the best driver to use, to avoid problems and issues
 
Some of the other drivers mentioned in this thread have KNOWN bugs and/or are lacking many recent driver fixes.
 
*While 326.80 may not be the fastest when benching.. thats NOT what counts, stability and working condition do.  
  

SeanEJohan

maniacvvv

326.80 would be the best driver to use, to avoid problems and issues

Some of the other drivers mentioned in this thread have KNOWN bugs and/or are lacking many recent driver fixes.

*While 326.80 may not be the fastest when benching.. thats NOT what counts, stability and working condition do.  

Last I checked Maniac does not own 670s.... All the new drivers coming out beyond the 320.49 will be optimized for the 700 series and not the 600 series. The 320.18 is the best performer for the 670GTX, but the 320.49 has necessary updates sli profiles, etc. I witnessed "tugging" in every single game I played with the 326.80 driver with my 2 x 670 GTX FTWs. I broke my previous Valley score with the 320.49 95.4fps/3993 score. The 326.80 posted huge declines in Valley 1.0 performance and exhibited this horrid tugging throughout the entire benchmark.

 
 
 
"All the new drivers coming out beyond the 320.49 will be optimized for the 700 series and not the 600 series"
 
That is completely false and incorrect
 
Your reported issues with higher driversets are unique to YOUR config, and do -NOT- represent the results reported by experienced users.
 
Please use whatever you think works best for you, but please dont try and make stuff up about how recent drivers dont support the 600 series cards or cause real performance issues in benchmarks. Thats not true.
 
*I run GTX 680's in SLI and have personally tested the drivers in question
And I am running 326.80 
 

SeanEJohan

maniacvvv

SeanEJohan

maniacvvv

326.80 would be the best driver to use, to avoid problems and issues

Some of the other drivers mentioned in this thread have KNOWN bugs and/or are lacking many recent driver fixes.

*While 326.80 may not be the fastest when benching.. thats NOT what counts, stability and working condition do.  

Last I checked Maniac does not own 670s.... All the new drivers coming out beyond the 320.49 will be optimized for the 700 series and not the 600 series. The 320.18 is the best performer for the 670GTX, but the 320.49 has necessary updates sli profiles, etc. I witnessed "tugging" in every single game I played with the 326.80 driver with my 2 x 670 GTX FTWs. I broke my previous Valley score with the 320.49 95.4fps/3993 score. The 326.80 posted huge declines in Valley 1.0 performance and exhibited this horrid tugging throughout the entire benchmark.

"All the new drivers coming out beyond the 320.49 will be optimized for the 700 series and not the 600 series"

That is completely false and incorrect

Your reported issues with higher driversets are unique to YOUR config, and do -NOT- represent the results reported by experienced users.

Please use whatever you think works best for you, but please dont try and make stuff up about how recent drivers dont support the 600 series cards or cause real performance issues in benchmarks. Thats not true.

*I run GTX 680's in SLI and have personally tested the drivers in question
And I am running 326.80 

 
I wouldn't listen to someone who doesn't own 670's. Listen to the guy topping all the current leaderboards with his 670 FTWS<<<<
GTX670 DUAL SETUPS 
lilchronic-------------------GTX 670(x2)---------4321  
buggyruth----------------GTX 670(x2)---------4130 
eternitykh-----------------GTX 670(x2)--------4060    
RodrigoOliveira1986----GTX 670(x2)---------4013    
SeanEJohan--------------GTX 670(x2)---------3974 
bdary----------------------GTX 670(x2)---------3887                 
 
You'll notice very few 670 sli set-ups get ahead of me below is my high score w/ 320.49 driver 

 
 
 
LOLOLOL
 
Benching is one thing, performance in the real world is another.
A 300 point gain in a benchmark, often means 2-3 fps in the real world if that
 
While your Numbers are OK, your experience with drivers and knowledge of how they function is seriously lacking.
The OP should not be worried about installing 326.80 and they will perform better than outdated versions in the real world.
------------------
 
You completely forgot to mention that you cant -play- or bench anything with the newer drivers....
Tugging? you said....
Yeah with that CPU OC and those Videocard OC's you are going to have issues with better drivers.
You do not appear to understand the issues involved, its not the drivers... 
 
 
 
 
 
 

SeanEjohan cares more about performance then he does bugs then I guess.
 
I got the 326.80 because they are the ONLY ones that fix the 36 hour bug, and also has a newer version of PhysX too that fixed a few issues in certain games I play.
 
if it means sometimes sacrificing a bit of performance to fix bugs then so be it.

 
"Yeah with that CPU OC and those Videocard OC's you are going to have issues with better drivers." 

So what you're trying to tell me is newer drivers won't work because of the cpu overclock and video card overclock?? LMAO I've heard some stupid stuff said, this one takes the cake!

SeanEJohan
Like I said you can take the advice from a 670 sli leader or someone who plays BF3...........your choice

So basically take advice from a bencher or a gamer? Nice way to make a point.

My 680 works very well with 326.80, just saying.

bdary

Side notes:  The highest Valley benchmark score I got was using the 326.80 beta driver.  (3964) 
Going from 320.18 to 320.49 I noticed some (not a lot) performance increase across the board.  After that, no real difference in anything but the noted bench score.

Just my 2 cents...

My highest Valley run was 326.80 as well.  My 3DMark11 scores were my best.  BF3 is the same for me.  All other games feel the same.
 
@OP The best drivers for me after 314.22 were 326.01 and 326.80

I'm still using 314.22 after having trouble with 320s and the first 326 beta. The 320 drivers give higher performance then 314 (my best valley scores are with 320.something), but the potential TDRs and BSODs are not worth it. When a final version of the 326 driver is released, I'll give those a try... but for now 314.22 works great. From the sounds of it on the geforce forum, the 326 beta still has some "issues", that's why i'm just waiting for a final (whql) release.
 

the 326.80 work fine on older cards too, I have them on my GTX 570 and GTX 460 in my other system

Lord Humungus

My GTX 670 started crashing the day after I updated it to the 320.49 drivers.  Had to RMA it. 

Whether it was a driver issue or not, who knows.

 
well that was a dumb move, I would have tested other drivers on it before RMAing it.

Lord Humungus



Go ahead and read this then come back and judge whether it was a dumb move or not: http://forums.evga.com/tm.aspx?m=1995253

It's actually the thread right below this one right now.

 
oopsie, sorry about that I didn't look at the other thread

oG kill3r

I tried the 326.80 , went back to the 320.49

Yeah my 670 FTWs did not run well on the new 326 family driver, tried about 15 games vs. the 320.49, was like night and day with the 320.49 in fps. It's been a long time since I've seen any notable increase in newer games like Tomb raider/Metro LL/Crysis 3. Hopefully the next one turns out better than this 326.80 beta. Grant it my cards are 15 months old now, so I guess I shouldn't expect much more out of Gk-104's.