We've been discussing AMD's Enduro 5.5 update for a few months now; when last we checked in, everything was almost in place...everything except fully optimized DX9 support. A little over a week ago, AMD posted one final (maybe?) beta release for Enduro laptops, and since we still have the AVADirect P170EM available we quickly ran it through our benchmarks one last time. Not a whole lot has changed, and some of the games even show minor drops—basically margin of error stuff—but let's just run the numbers.

Note: The Enduro 9.01 Beta is similar but not entirely the same as the Desktop/Mobile 12.11 Beta8 driver. We only tested a couple titles with the latter and saw lower performance, so we recommend the Enduro driver for Enduro enabled laptop users—which makes sense, given the driver name. I've referred to the Enduro 9.01 Beta below as 12.11 Beta8, as I believe they're the same core driver but with some extra Enduro tweaks present.

Mobile 7970M Enthusiast Gaming

For many of the games, we see only minor differences; in fact, of the fourteen tested games, only two show more than a 5% difference, but those two show major improvements. Civilization V finally fixes the inexcusably poor performance from the 7970M and boosts frame rates by 50% while DiRT: Showdown also gets a major kick in the pants and is up 65% compared to the previous Enduro beta.

Overall, those two results are enough to give an average performance increase of 5%, but really it's the difference between borderline playable and smooth performance in those specific games. The only game where we're still down a ways from the best result we've seen on 7970M is Portal 2; the DX9 Hotfix we tested still manages about 10% better performance than we're seeing with the 12.11 Beta8 Enduro driver

Looking at the big picture, the 7970M still can't max out details on every single title you're likely to play—Sleeping Dogs and The Witcher 2 in particular are brutal, with Battlefield 3 and Guild Wars 2 also hovering closer to 30FPS than we'd like. Still, you're not going to get much faster should you opt for the NVIDIA GTX 680M at this point. Here's the latest breakdown of how the two top mobile GPUs compare:

Mobile Enthusiast Gaming - HD 7970M vs. GTX 680M

NVIDIA still holds punishingly large leads in Batman: Arkham City, Borderlands 2, Diablo 3, and Portal 2 (35%, 57%, 113%, and 43% faster, respectively), which is what keeps the GTX in the overall lead by 17%. AMD on the other hand comes away with sizeable wins in DiRT: Showdown and Sniper Elite V2. The remaining games are all close to the 10% or less range, and if we discount the big wins we just listed, the eight other titles are basically a wash—NVIDIA wins by 1%. But that's painting perhaps too rosy a picture for AMD, considering the four vs. two major victories.

The fact is, NVIDIA is still ahead on the drivers and support side of the equation. The latest Enduro driver certainly closes the gap, but NVIDIA has been better about getting updated mobile drivers out with support for new releases for two years now. I suspect if I were to go out and test Black Ops 2 and Assassin's Creed 3, I'd be more likely to see additional large NVIDIA wins—especially since those titles carry NVIDIA branding. On the other hand, Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3, and Medal of Honor: Warfighter are all AMD branded games that have released recently (or in the case of FC3, it releases in the next week), so they ought to have a lead in those games. If I get a chance, I'll try to confirm performance on those titles, since all are likely to be popular.

We're still back to the same old refrain: where AMD really needs to work is on their drivers and updates. The 7970M is their halo mobile GPU, so it's getting good support (now). In fact, most of the 7000M products are receiving decent support, but earlier Enduro/Dynamic Switchable Graphics laptops are still a bit finicky about getting drivers installed. My overall feeling is that NVIDIA has also had more high profile games in the past couple years; AMD looks like they have a good list of titles for this holiday season, and hopefully they can continue that.

Personally, I loved Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and the DiRT series has been pretty popular as well. Sleeping Dogs looks pretty cool, but I haven't had a chance to play it much so I can't really comment there. Sniper Elite V2 on the other hand has not received particularly high marks, and neither has Nexuiz. NVIDIA also has a lot of multi-platform (re: console) games on their list, but those are still some of the better sellers. Basically, NVIDIA historically ends up with co-branding on more major releases than AMD, and with the latest talks about AMD sell offs and buy outs circulating, it's a scary time for computer enthusiasts looking at AMD—though their GPU division is definitely a brighter spot on the list.

It's taken roughly a year for Enduro to reach where we wanted it to start, and anyone who bought in early is probably more than a little irked. I'm still looking for improved support of HD 6000M/"5000M" laptops with Dynamic Switchable Graphics, but in another year even that won't really matter as it will be time for an upgrade. If you've already got an AMD-equipped laptop, the latest drivers are definitely worth a download. If you're on the fence, we're to the point where waiting for the next mobile GPUs (e.g. "8000M" and "700M") might be the way to go.

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  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link

    It's nice not to see the deranged amd fanboys screaming amd will lower prices and wipe nVidia out.
    For years I had to put up with it, and no amount of facts, data, nor common sense would do.
    Now, even the author of the piece mentions the buyout/failure rumors circulating...
    LOL
    nVidia (GPU's) gained marketshare in Q3 and Intel and AMD lost.
    LOL
    It is so sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet to see the amd fanboy liars brought low ( in their own mind ! ), where they have always been, and where they belong.
    I have told them for years on end, if they are such insane fanboys, and they are, they should be paying top dollar for AMD cards, but instead they raped amd down to the last penny they could extract with timing, lies, complaining, and any other lowlife tactic like delaying purchase until nVidia drove amd prices into the gutter, all the while attacking nVidia while relying upon them to rape their great master AMD.
    With friends like amd fanboys, enemies are not needed to be utterly destroyed.
  • xdrol - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    You know, all Catalyst drivers but the WHQL ones are beta. It is at least the same quality as any other Catalyst from last year, and they stopped asking for WHQL signatures because it added 1 month to the release cycle (what is kinda problematic if you want monthly releases)
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    True, but the Enduro beta is quite a different beast from the regular desktop/laptop beta drivers. If you haven't experienced it for yourself, you wouldn't understand. :-)
  • TrantaLocked - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    You don't understand how big of a jump 12.11 beta was over the stock drivers for the mobile platform.
  • heffeque - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - link

    Tell us more...
  • CeriseCogburn - Thursday, November 29, 2012 - link

    Gunbuster, just expect it. The amd fans can't help themselves, lying comes so naturally to them now that if they had to tell the truth it would take six months to do so as they'd immediately enter a coma from the massive reorganization their brains require to do so.
    Did amd ever fix it's hackable drivers so the US Government could possibly use them without massive security risks ?
    NO, of course they didn't.
  • SetiroN - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    does the switching work as flawlessly as Optimus does?
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    On the latest laptops, it's generally at the point where I'd say "yes". I still prefer the NVIDIA driver UI, but for less technical users I think it won't matter much. The bigger factor now will be the bottom line: if a laptop with NVIDIA is cheaper, that's what people will buy; if AMD's partners can hit lower prices (without compromising on other areas like LCD, keyboard, etc.), they'll move more units.
  • darcotech - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    When I go to different sites to configure laptops with this GPUs price differ from 273USD to 376 Euros!!! So how you can compare them? If you go AMD way, for same money you can get much better CPU or much bigger SSD or anything 300USD difference can give you?
    Price wise it should be compared to 675m which it beats.
  • tviceman - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 - link

    Are you going to get a laptop with Nvidia's newer ultra high end notebook GPU? I realize it's specs will put it somewhere between a gtx670 and gtx660ti, but still interested in how it performs with notebook CPU's attached to it.

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