It has been a long time since AMD introduced something new with most of the GPUs being called ‘rebrands’ of previous flagships. So AMD decided to do something new and presented the Crimson Drivers on 2nd November that became available for public download on 4th November, which may seem to be another rebrand of the AMD Catalyst at first. We did some sort of research into it and we concluded otherwise.
AMD seems to be getting into the modern way of presenting things with this driver. Where the Catalyst Driver was simple and had too many side menus, the Crimson Driver has a very streamlined UI. What previously was AMD Catalyst™ Control Center is now Radeon Settings (Which sounds more awesome). The sharp features with the now silky red color looks way more cooler and more attractive.
In terms of performance AMD does have some bold claims, which if in any case are true, many people would be lining up to buy AMD cards in the coming weeks. They claim to have improved performance of upto 20% more and decrease loading time by 33% in certain games. Also they seem to have improved responsiveness of cursor and keyboard inputs which will come in handy for competitive gamers. Power is one of he main concerns among AMD users and looks like AMD is trying to rectify it, as the latest drivers estimate power savings of up to 23%. The below graph shows the performance improvement for Witcher 3.
Last but not the least, with the Crimson Drivers, AMD is looking to go more Nvidia like, by developing the driver to estimate the settings of a game, similar to Nvidia’s GeForce Experience. Let’s hope that the software doesn’t suggest us to keep the settings on low for the good cards.
We can safely conclude that the Crimson Driver is not just another rebrand, it’s something new and would probably propel AMD back into the market. Let us know in the comments section below what you think about the new driver and would you consider buying an AMD card with the new driver released.