AMD today announced the arrival of its "Never Settle" Bundle, which packages PC gaming titles, including "Far Cry 3" by Ubisoft along with "Hitman: Absolution" and "Sleeping Dogs" by Square Enix, with the purchase of select AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards.
Gamers who purchase any holiday bundle package will also receive a code which will entitle them to a 20 percent discount off the retail price of the upcoming Digital Deluxe Edition of EA's "Medal of Honor: Warfighter."
Additionally, AMD is launching the "Never Settle" version of its AMD Catalyst Driver, which will provide owners of AMD Radeon graphics cards with performance improvements in many of their favorite games.
The "Never Settle" Bundle will offer gamers a free download and/or discount code when they purchase select AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards. This chart below breaks down the details:
Game Title |
AMD Radeon Model |
| |
HD 7950 |
HD 7970 |
HD 7970 GHZ |
HD 7770 GHZ |
Buy 2 HD 7770 GHZ |
HD 7850 |
Buy 2 HD 7850 |
HD 7870 |
Buy 2 HD 7870 |
Far Cry 3
Download code |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
Sleeping Dogs
Download code |
x |
x |
x |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hitman
Download code |
x |
x |
x |
|
x |
|
x |
|
x |
Medal of Honor 20% off coupon code |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
x |
In addition to the "Never Settle" Bundle, select boxes will include a coupon for immediate beta access of the Red 5 Studios game "Firefall" and exclusive themed war paint and decals.
AMD says that the new "Never Settle" version of the AMD Catalyst Driver is one of the most important drivers AMD has ever delivered to gamers. The new drivers (v12.11 Beta)target AMD Radeon 7000 series GPUs, specifically those based on the Graphics CoreNext architecture, such as HD 7750, HD 7770 GHz Ed., HD 7850, HD 7870 GHz Ed., HD 7950, HD 7950 BE, HD 7970, HD 7970 GHz Ed., and HD 7990; and mobile Radeon HD 7700M series, HD 7800M series, and HD 7900M series.
According to AMD, this driver introduces significant performance improvements for many games across all 28nm AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series products: HD 7700, HD 7800 and HD 7900.
Performance improvements (vs. AMD Catalyst 12.8):
- Up to 18% in Battlefield 3
- Certain maps will see an improvement in excess of 20%
- Up to 15% in Civilization V
- Up to 18% in Medal of Honor: Warfighter
- Up to 11% in 3DMark 11
- Up to 8% in Borderlands 2
- Up to 9% in StarCraft 2
- Up to 8% in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Up to 15% in Unigine Heaven
- Up to 5% in Just Cause 2
AMD Catalyst 12.11 enhancements:
- Full support for Windows 8 on AMD Radeon HD 5000, HD 6000 and HD 7000 Series graphics cards
- AMD Catalyst driver 12.10 CAP1 for AMD CrossFire technology users
- New user interface for AMD Enduro technology in AMD Catalyst Control Center
- View all profiled applications, create new application profiles, “expert mode” control and customization of power profiles.
- TriFire and QuadFire + AMD Eyefinity technology configurations:
Users will no longer see lower-than-expected performance in certain
DirectX10 and DirectX 11 applications
- Mozilla Firefox: We no longer observe flickering and/or courruption in the UI on AMD CrossFire configurations
- Enabling AMD OverDrive technology no longer increases clocks in all GPU power states
- Resolves the system delay observed when opening the Windows Audio
system tray on Multi-GPU configurations to configure HDMI® Audio
setting.
This driver enables full support for WDDM 1.2 on the AMD Radeon HD 7000, HD 6000 and HD 5000 Series. WDDM 1.2 is an
updated model for graphics drivers that Microsoft has developed to
ensure smooth performance and wide compatibility in their new operating
system. AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series users will additionally enjoy full
support for DirectX 11.1. Amongst other features, this includes support
for stereo 3D gaming that is now built right into DirectX. Future games
can be designed to enable stereo 3D graphics without relying on
third-party SDKs or libraries, and AMD says it is ready to support these titles
with AMD HD3D technology. AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics further
support a new DirectX 11.1 feature called “Target Independent
Rasterization” (TIR), which enables hardware anti-aliasing for vector
graphics. For users of products on AMD’s extended support cycle—AMD
Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000 and HD 4000 Series—AMD has also made a Windows 8-compatible version of AMD Catalyst 12.6 available. This driver brings the full AMD Catalyst Control Center
experience to these GPUs in the new OS. As a reminder, these products
have been transitioned to the extended support phase of the product
lifecycle because they have reached peak optimization from a feature and
performance perspective.
The "Never Settle" version of the AMD Catalyst Driver is available for download here.